


Silver Spoon

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-05-24 16:43:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: “It was a one time thing.  I can't believe-” Jon chuckles a little hoarsely. “I’m a poster child for ‘once is all it takes’ birth control posters.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Dan Week](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/comeonandslamandwelcometothedan) for the Day 1 prompt “kid!fic.” Title comes from [Cat's in the Cradle.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUwjNBjqR-c)

The doctor’s office smells like antiseptic and alcohol wipes. Jon’s stomach churns, twisting so familiarly that he reaches for a basin with whole seconds to spare.

“Mr. Favreau. Not feeling too well I see?”

Jon accepts the small cup of water the nurse hands him gratefully. “It comes and goes,” Jon admits, halfway, then adds, “it's been coming and going for weeks now.”

“Okay, we’ll get you taken care of. If you could fill out this paperwork and pee in this cup-” She hands him a clipboard and a plastic cup and he takes them both regretfully.

“Well,” Tommy slaps his knees as he stands. “That's my cue. I'll be in the waiting room if you, ahh, need me.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “You're not gonna hold my hand for me?”

Tommy shakes his head. “If you wanted that, then you should have brought Tanya.” He does squeeze Jon’s shoulder, though, as he slips out the door, leaving Jon to his pen and his cup and a battery of blood draws and invasive questions.

“Do you have any allergies we should know about?” _Some pollen, something with grass sometimes but I’ve never been tested._

“How many hours of sleep do you get at night?” _Enough. Eight hours, usually, interrupted a few times by Twitter but- I'm always tired anyways._ “You shouldn't sleep with your phone next to your bed.” _Yeah, no shit._

“What's your stress level?” _Donald Trump is President. See my last answer re: Twitter._

“Has there been any blood in your stool?” _I haven't checked specifically, but, seems like something I would have noticed, so, no._

“Are you sexually active?” _No. Yes. Do you mean consistently, or-? Once. There was once in the past few months._

The nurse takes his form when he holds it out and skims it quickly. She stops at the last question, tapping her pen against the clipboard. “You were safe?”

Jon blinks, then feels his entire body flush as he registers the question. “Yeah. Or, we tried to be. The condom was old and- But it's fine. We're both clean. There's no need to do a full STD panel, save the taxpayers a few bucks.”

She hums. “This is a safe space, Mr. Favreau. I'm going to need you to answer truthfully. Is there a chance you could be pregnant?”

“No,” Jon says, before she's even finished asking. His entire body is flushed and his skin is burning. He wonders, vaguely, if Lovett’s given him his strep throat just, somehow, in his stomach. He amends. “Well, technically-”

“Is there any family history of the gene?” The nurse tilts her head to catch his eyes. “Even, maybe, someone you didn't know well?”

“No.” _Maybe, we used to joke, Uncle Marvin, on my mother's side. There were always- he was sent away. Died long before I was born. They were_ just _jokes_. “Not that I know of.”

She frowns, humming a little under her breath. 

“Mmm. And have you ever been tested?”

Jon’s mind rifles through facts and figures and impossibilities, until he settles on the stats they repeated over and over again about carrier coverage during the ACA fight. “One in fifty,” Jon recites the odds. “One in _a hundred and fifty_ , if there's no family history.”

“Some recent research suggests that those numbers have been underreported,” she muses as she jots a note onto the edge of his paperwork. “Either way, I’ll add it to your bank of tests.”

“Sure,” Jon agrees, because he's already made the saving money argument and his stomach is feeling queasy again. He leans his head back, letting his hands rest against his abs.

“Alright.” She smiles compassionately, sliding her stool under the counter and gathering up his vials. “The doctor will be in when your tests are done. Would you like me to send your boyfriend in?”

“My-?” Jon frowns, but doesn't open his eyes. “Oh, no, he’s not my- No, I’m fine, thanks.”

He's not sure how long he lies there, in the liminal space between knowing and not knowing, before the doctor comes in.

***

“That was quick,” Tommy smiles as he sets aside his book - a thick, heavy hardcover on Cuba that Jon would have teased him about just a few minutes ago - and uncrosses his legs. He stretches, flattening out his pants as he reaches for his messenger bag, before he gets a good look at Jon’s face. “Hey,” he says, voice dropping into a question as he reaches for Jon’s elbow.

Jon’s mind is a whirlpool of white noise, and it tosses and turns sickeningly as he shakes his head.

“Shit, just-” Tommy tries to lead him to a chair, but the room smells eggshell white and looks like the rustle of magazines and the anxious pounding of hearts and it sounds close and tight and Jon can’t breathe through his synesthesia.

“Can we just get out of here?” His voice hits Tommy’s chest and warps, echoing back to him, hollow and unrecognizable.

“Of course, yeah.” Tommy throws his bag haphazardly over his shoulder and gathers his book under his arm, steering Jon’s elbow with his free hand “You okay to walk?”

Jon nods. “It’s not- I’m fine. I’m- healthy.” He trips over the word, physically stubbing his toe against a crack in the linoleum and Tommy’s fingers tighten.

“Sure,” he agrees, easily, as he bypasses the car and leads them out into the late February gloom.

Jon reaches for his sunglasses, anyway, and it takes a moment of scrambling around his head to realize that he must have left them at his house. His house, where Tanya’s waiting, half worried and half exasperated, after three weeks of needling him to make a doctor’s appointment until she just made one herself and put it in his google calendar. His house, where Lovett’s probably sitting cross-legged on Jon’s couch, typing around both Leo and Pundit’s heads on his thighs and trying not to be just as worried. His house, where just this morning Jon woke up, showered, made a protein shake for breakfast, all the things that have become integral to the easy, simple, normal, unextraordinary life he’s built for himself since leaving the White House.

His house, where just this morning he did all those things, having no idea that it was the last time he would ever do them with such casual carelessness.

Jon shakes his head. “We should call Lovett and Tanya, tell them we’re going to be late.”

“Shit, yeah.” Tommy stops, letting go of Jon’s elbow so he can shove his book into his bag and dig his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll do that, if you’ll get us some tacos?” 

Tommy nods towards the little stand on the edge of the park and Jon nods. He orders them both an array of tacos and a plastic bag of chili mangoes, and finds a bench to wait on.

“We’re gonna push the ad reads back a couple hours,” Tommy says, as he takes the seat next to Jon and pulls a cardboard box of tacos into his lap. “Tanya says hi and Lovett says to remind you that Leo is a monster. Fuck, these look good.”

“So, he’s sitting quietly by the door then,” Jon interprets, as he opens his own box and picks a piece of steak out of the tortilla. He looks at it for a moment, his fingertips burning in the jalapeno salsa, before he remembers an article that Molly had sent him once about spicy foods, and drops it back into the box.

Tommy hums, as tomato and mango juices leak down his wrist. “He said to check the team Slack.”

Jon hands over a wad of napkins as he shifts his hips, ignoring the rolling of his stomach as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket. Team Slack, he thinks, is a bit of a misnomer, when it’s just the three of them and Tanya. And Dan.

His mind burns as it touches on Dan’s name, and he deliberately pulls it back.

He has a dozen missed notifications, mostly variations on _we ate the last of pizza_ and _put lacroix on the shopping list, we’re down to two cases and you don’t want to see me if we run out_ and, finally, a picture of Leo, his legs splayed behind him and a ball resting, forgotten, between his paws as he stares forlornly at the door Jon had left out of only an hour or so before.

Jon clicks on the photo, zooms in, his heart growing tight and hot, as it tries to contain everything he’s feeling until, finally, it’s easier to say, “I’m pregnant,” than it is to hold it in.

Tommy slowly places his taco back in the box and puts it aside. He wipes at his fingers carefully, the napkins wadded tightly in his hands, and Jon can see it all running across the pale, tight angles of his face. Years of ingrained Protestant prejudices that Tommy had thought had been washed away years ago, being forcibly reexamined and discarded until his thoughts have been rearranged around the nucleus of, “shit, Jon. For real?”

“No, for the world’s most fucked up prank.” Jon takes a deep breath. “Yeah, for real.”

“Sorry,” Tommy apologizes, quickly. He angles himself sideways, dropping one knee to the bench so he can turn towards Jon. “Just. This is-”

“A lot?” Jon supplies, as puts aside his tacos and crosses his legs, pulling away from Tommy’s calf and inwards, trying to make his stomach look as small and concave as it did in his mind’s eye just yesterday. “Yeah, for me, too.”

“Yeah.” Tommy swallows. “Did you know?”

“I was never tested. It never seemed-” Jon shrugs. “- important. Seems like a bit of an oversight, now.”

Tommy snorts. “A bit, yeah. We were all tested, at Milton.” He shrugs. “But there’s no history in my family, so, small chance.”

“Mine neither.” Jon thinks about Uncle Marvin again and makes a mental note to ask his mother about him. Shit. Jon pulls himself away from that thought and into another admission. “It never felt- worth it, to get tested.” 

_Worth it_ to take the time out of his busy schedule of basketball and AP classes. _Worth it_ to get stuck by a needle, to have his blood drawn, to see the results in stark relief on a folded piece of paper like the one in his pocket right now. _Worth it_ to suffer the disappointment, as small and unlikely as the hope was, when it inevitably came back negative.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees, settling his side into the back of the bench, stretching his arm out and brushing his fingers against Jon’s shoulder. Jon doesn't pull away this time. “What are you going to do?”

“I-” Jon stops. He's been assuming- when the doctor had said _you're pregnant_ , Jon had heard _you're having a baby_ and he's not nearly ready enough to interrogate that further. Besides, he can't, without- He takes a deep breath. “I have to talk to Dan.”

Tommy’s fingers still and he straightens his back.

“It wasn't-” 

Jon’s mind drifts, again, to the hot pot of that memory, and Jon lets himself be burned for just a moment - Dan, over him, in him, his arms shaking as he murmured Jon’s name, just as Jon had always imagined he would, in the darkest, most private corners of his fantasies; Dan, kissing him through it and then pulling out and away, walking away once the sun came up, like nothing happened, like they could hide it in other dark corners, next to _Donald Trump is President_ and _strange things happen at the end of world_ \- before he pulls away from the memory, feeling the edges of his mind crackle and curl. He rests his hands over the physical manifestation of all his most private hopes. This, he thinks fleetingly, is what POTUS must have felt like as he was debating and defending ACA for six straight hours on the House floor and in front of millions on TV.

Jon spreads his fingers. “It was a one time thing. I can't believe-” He chuckles a little hoarsely. “I’m a poster child for ‘once is all it takes’ birth control posters.”

“Don't be absurd,” Tommy chastises him. “Donald Trump is President. Abstinence only posters.”

Jon can't tell if the rolling in his stomach is laughter or the baby. He closes his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Tommy starts moving his fingers again, short, calming brushes against Jon’s neck. “You gonna tell him?”

“Of course,” Jon’s eyes fly open. “I never considered- Should I consider not?”

“No,” Tommy says, softly, surely.

“Whatever he thinks of me,” Jon says, with a deep, pained breath that grates against the still-smoldering burn in his memory. “He deserves to know his kid.”

“Yeah, he does.”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “You're taking this in stride.”

Tommy shrugs. “I’m not, like, picturing the conception or anything, but not all of this is that surprising.” He squeezes the back of Jon’s neck. “I know you, and I know Dan, and I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised.”

Jon bites his lip.

“But,” Tommy squeezes harder, forcing Jon to look at him. “Whatever happens, I'm going to be here for you. And I can only speak for myself, but I know Tanya and Lovett and Andy will be, too.”

“Don't-” Jon thinks about Lovett and Tanya back home, the dogs and their infant media company in their capable hands. “Don't tell them yet, yeah? Not ‘til I talk to Dan.”

“Yeah, course.” Tommy pulls just far enough away to grab his phone. “So, I'm supposed to call the realtor today. There's this place on Sunset that's,” he smiles a real, half-smile and Jon’s hands, “looking even more appealing now. Up for an open house?”

“You don't-” Jon swallows. “You don't have to do that, Tommy.”

Tommy waves him away. “We were doing it anyway. Now there's just a little more incentive.” He pushes off from the bench. “Come on. We can FaceTime Hanna from the house.”

Jon’s senses right themselves as he follows Tommy to the car, the taco box clutched to his chest. It smells like jalapeno and mango and steak, and his stomach growls audibly. “Can we stop at Taco Bell on the way?”

Tommy laughs at him. “You pay the cleaning fee if you spill.”

“If I spill, it'll be due to your terrible driving,” Jon argues.

Tommy grins - “fair point” - as he pulls out of the spot.

***

Jon doesn't know if the nausea and the insomnia-tinged-exhaustion are pregnancy or stress induced, but by Thursday he’s a mess. Lovett comes over early for ad reads, with his laptop under his arm, Pundit around his ankles, and a one-track mind towards Jon’s Keurig that gets derailed with one look at Jon.

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs, setting the coffee to percolate and then grabbing Jon by the elbow. “I thought the doctor was supposed to _cure_ what ails you, not make it worse. This is why we're struggling with ACA. Doctors are second-rate hacks posing as scientists and everyone knows it. Up, shower, now.”

Jon’s stomach settles at the smell of coffee and he wonders, absently, how much damage one mild-flavored pod of Dunkin can really do. “I don't really think that's our problem with ACA.”

“What a coincidence, cause I'm not very interested in your opinion right now.” Lovett pulls him up, stronger than Jon ever expects him to be, strong enough to hold Jon’s entire weight when he needs it. “Shower, please, before we get on Skype with Dan and Tommy and they connect my body to one of those stretcher things? From Game of Thrones. And Medieval Europe. Thank fuck Trump never cracked open a history book or he'd be hanging people like me from our fingertips like they used to do in the Dark Ages.”

Jon assumes he means gay people, although he could also mean liberal progressives or former Hillary Clinton staffers or people who denigrate iced lattes at Starbucks. In Jon’s case, he could also be strung up for being a carrier, and a fist the size of Lovett’s squeezes Jon's heart, knocking the air out of him with how much Jon wants to tell him.

After- Just, after.

He and Lovett had talked about it. Once. A late night conversation during the ACA fight, when carrier reproductive rights were getting lost under the umbrella of reproductive rights more generally, with Lovett’s feet curled under himself and a diet coke two-hands large cradled between his thighs. Lovett had offered quietly - the way he only does once all the trappings of normal, successful, societally-appropriate daily life have melted away with the sunset - that he had tested negative, when he was just a kid. When he hadn't known himself well enough, yet, to know that it would ever be a possibility for him.

“I want carrier rights,” Lovett had said, as he chewed the end of his straw. “I want civil unions and gay marriage. But, honestly, I just want to be able to hold my partner’s hand in the street and, maybe, someday, adopt a litter of kids. A litter? Or a litter of pigs, whichever fits my lifestyle best, I suppose.”

That was eight years and at least two iterations of the Democratic Party ago. Jon hasn't asked him, but he'd bet almost everything in him that Lovett has as many regrets as he does about the vulnerabilities and loopholes they left in ACA in the name of political expediency.

“I'm gonna-” Lovett points back towards the kitchen and just says, “caffeine. You can shower by yourself, right? Not that I'd be of much help _before_ coffee anyway.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Yes, Jon, I can shower without the grace of your presence.”

Lovett tuts. “Fake news, under your own roof. You'd fall apart without me.”

Jon swallows, and the confession is on the tip of his tongue until Lovett turns on his heel, both dogs circling his calves as he pads back to the kitchen. Leaving Jon with his resolve and his own body odor.

He steps into the shower immediately.

The shower has the pleasant side effect of filling the time - time he had been planning on spending wallowing and worrying and working himself into a stress-induced pod-cancelling-worthy illness - before Dan calls to record. And when Jon comes out, done and clean and a little clearer-headed, Lovett has already taken the dogs out for their usual Thursday pod walk.

There is a mug of coffee waiting for him, temptingly sitting in the circle of his headphones. Jon allows himself just a couple sips, then pushes it away and opens his recording software right as Dan calls in.

“Hey,” Jon answers, flipping through his rolodex of a decade of friendship to find the right, unflinching tone. “Happy Thursday.”

“Happy sixth week of the Trump Presidency.” Dan’s voice rumbles through Jon’s body, just as he knew it would, and it strikes him, sickeningly, that their baby is the same age as the end of the world.

Good balancing out evil. Evil building on evil. Jon still isn't quite sure which it is, but listening to Dan’s voice, now, it's harder to lie to himself. Not as Dan’s voice soothes his stomach in a way neither honey nor popsicles nor crackers nor the hundred other things BuzzFeed has told him to try have been able to. As if their baby, already, feels comforted in their father’s presence.

Jon would get that, if his heart wasn't beating an Irish jig up his vocal cords. He coughs. “Lovett’s keeping a calendar, marking each week with a picture of Pundit. We have-” He glances over his laptop at the giant Crooked Media planning calendar on the wall. “202 weeks to go.”

“Don't remind me. My anxiety is starting to affect my sleep,” Dan moans.

_You have no idea_. Jon scoots has chair closer to the table so he can't look down at his belly, regretting already the extra burden he's about to lay on Dan’s plate. “So, ahh, speaking of. I know it's short notice, but, I'm coming up to visit Tommy next weekend. We have some Crooked paperwork to work through with the lawyer.” Or, technically, Tommy has some paperwork he needs to work through, but Jon needs the excuse and Tommy is nothing if not following through on his promise to help out at every step of the way. “Thought, maybe, we could do something. Saturday? Blow off some steam with take out from that fried chicken place. I think there's a Sixers game.”

“Sure,” Dan agrees, and Jon’s almost certain that he's imagining both the hesitation and anticipation in his voice. “That sounds nice.”

“Perfect. I'll put it on the calendar.” Jon’s eyes blur over with pre-emptive nerves, and he has to blink. “Wanna get started? Gonna be a short one this week, with only two crazy Trump tweets.”

“That's two crazy tweets more than any other President in our lifetimes.”

“Save it for the Pod,” Jon tells him, the ordinariness of the ribbing lulling him into a false sense of normal. He relaxes his shoulders, slouching, a little, across his dining room table and hits record. “Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.”

“I'm Dan Pfeiffer,” Dan says easily, fluidly, and it shoots Jon out of that sense of normality like an election lever Jon didn't mean to pull.

The rest of the Pod passes in a blur that, Tanya promises later, is a passable approximation of his normal Thursday Pod dynamic. When the Pod is over, though, after Lovett’s timed his return perfectly to interrupt the last few minutes and after they've both said their goodbyes, Jon pulls Leo into his lap and finally lets himself close his eyes.

***

“Thank you,” Jon calls to Hanna as he clears his dish, surreptitiously sweeping the marinated chicken and vegetables into the garbage before she can catch him. “Dinner was delicious.”

Tommy slaps him on the shoulder, taking his plate from him and dumping it in the dishwasher. “We're gonna go out for a bit, watch the game from O’Malleys so you can have the TV here.”

Hanna raises her chin for a kiss but doesn't argue as they leave for someplace with, “fries?” Jon asks, hopefully, as they climb into Tommy’s car. “It’s not that I don't _like_ Hanna’s cooking, but the smell of garlic.” He shakes his head. “Also, carbs.”

Tommy laughs. “We can find carbs.”

Jon orders a dinner-sized portion of fries and a side of onion rings that smell good until he actually tries to eat one. He puts the ring back and shoves the plate towards Tommy with a sigh. Tommy grabs one, absently, as he takes a sip of his Guinness with his other hand. Jon wishes he could have a beer. Truthfully, Jon wishes he could down a couple shots of whiskey, but just the smell of Jack brings forth a host of images, unwanted and jarring. Dan’s fingers brushing his over the mini liquor bottle. Dan’s breath, smelling like Jack and cherry blossoms against his ear. Dan’s voice, thick with liquor, asking if Jon’s sure, asking and re-asking, over and over again, sounding desperately like false hope.

“Favs?” Tommy taps his hand, his smooth cheeks dimpled with worry when Jon looks up. “You good?”

“'Good’ isn't quite the word I'd use, no.”

Tommy nods in stride. “Wanna hear something stupid?”

“Yes, please.” Jon reaches across the table, trying his hand at another onion ring.

“Carol Hunter- you remember Carol Hunter?”

Jon snorts. “Editor in chief of the Des Moines Register, Carol Hunter? I'm never going to forget Carol Hunter.”

Tommy’s widen, his cheeks flushing under the Guinness and the memories of Iowa, the way they always do. “I’d almost forgotten. She was the one-?”

“Took a five minute meeting with me and decided she was endorsing Hillary.” Jon reaches for a second onion ring when the first one settles okay. “Said I was rude and dismissive of the grand legacy of the Iowa Caucuses.”

“She wasn't wrong. About you or about the Caucuses.”

“Okay, okay,” Jon rolls his eyes, “I don't need to see your Iowa boner, thanks.” And it's almost - almost - easy to let Dan’s name roll of his tongue. “I was sure that I'd fucked up my entire career, but Dan- Dan smoothed it over like it was nothing. I think that might have been the first time I thought about-” About how good a father Dan would be, someday, when he would eventually turn his attention from wrangling reporters to wrangling children. It had been a fleeting thought, back then. It's a much stronger thought, now, like an aching maw in the center of Jon’s chest that he's trying to fill with fried food and the thought of alcohol.

Tommy nods at his empty plate. “Should we get another order? I need another beer anyway.”

When Jon arrives at Dan’s townhouse early the next evening, he’s still thinking about that moment in Iowa and the decade of other moments stretching across their friendship. Moments when Dan had been Jon’s person, the one he called for advice on every decision, big or small. If Tommy’s the one he goes to for unquestioned, enduring support and Lovett’s the one he goes to to be challenged, gently and unerringly, Dan is the one Jon goes to to fix things. Dan makes Jon feel safe. Dan is the one Jon wants next to him during the darkest, most fragile moments of his life, just as Dan is the one Jon wants next to him during the brightest, most blinding of moments. Jon wants Dan next to him, in whatever capacity he can have him.

Jon takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell.

Dan answers in his most worn Popovich-Kerr 2020 shirt under a grey zip-up in deference to San Francisco’s much cooler Marches. Jon misses LA for a sharp moment, and then steps inside, letting himself be pulled into a one-armed hug.

“I've got beer and there's fried chicken on the way,” Dan tells him. “I wasn't sure what you wanted, but, I got a bit of everything.”

Normally, Jon would eat some, or most, of everything, but his stomach has been doing flips for hours. Since Tommy lay on Jon’s guest room bed, flipping idly through Twitter and ribbing him as Jon tried shirt after shirt before settling on the same black t-shirt and loose jeans he had started with. Since Tommy had kissed the top of his head, promised “he clearly doesn’t care what you look like, or you wouldn’t have a bun in the oven,” which, Jon assumes, is a joke he’s been storing up for a special occasion. 

It hadn’t not-worked, though, and Jon has been managing his nerves, until they sit down to eat and Dan lets the basketball game fill at least fifteen minutes of silence before he puts his fork down. “According to the team Slack,” he says, and it’s only a little accusing, only a little edged in _you said our one night mistake wouldn’t change anything_ , but Jon flinches anyway, “you’ve been awfully sick the past month or so. Tanya texted to say you were going to the doctor last week. Everything okay?”

Jon swallows, putting down his fork and giving up any pretense of eating. “Depends on how you think about it.”

Dan shifts, reaching out to mute the game. Dan’s eyes are soft, deep and dark over a concerned frown. Jon’s seen that same look so many times before, worry and distress and impatience. Dan asks, more insistently, “Jon, just- tell me what’s going on.”

It’s only the second moment Jon’s considered leaving it be. Of walking away, as far as his feet can carry him, until he reaches a farm house in Idaho and settles down to make a living off of local journalism and potato farming. But, he dismisses it as quickly as he did the first time. As agonizing as Jon’s sure it will be to tell him, Jon’s own discomfort pales in the face of what’s best for his child. _Their _child. Fuck.__

__“I’m pregnant,” he says, so quietly that Dan has to tilt his head, let the words process before his eyes widen. It’s like a dam, though, and Jon can’t hold back the cascade of anxious words. “I didn’t know. I promise, I- I never got checked. My family, as far as I know, there’s never been- And I thought- When the condom broke, I didn’t think- I promise it wasn’t on purpose.”_ _

__“I-“ Dan blinks, his throat thick and wet, as he assures, with all sincerity, “I know. I wouldn’t have ever thought- That you’d- I know you didn’t.” He clears his throat, but his voice is even smaller, terrified and loose and wondrous. “It’s mine?”_ _

__Jon holds himself back from something bitter and destructive, but not from- “Shit. Yes- Fuck, Dan, of course it’s yours.”_ _

__Dan holds up his hands, palms out. His feet are twisting on the ground, his knees at an awkward angle, and Jon wishes there was less distance between them. “This is a lot to take in. You have to give me a moment, here. You’ve had, how long-?”_ _

__“Ten days,” Jon offers, bringing his hand up to twist his bottom lip rather than resting it on his stomach._ _

__“Ten days,” Dan repeats, “to come to terms with this. Just, give me a minute to readjust my entire life.”_ _

__Jon closes his eyes, his worst nightmares flashing across his mind’s eye. Eight months from now, when Dan sits in the waiting room, flipping through Twitter and regretting all his life choices as he waits to meet his son or daughter. Five years from now, as Dan rings the doorbell to pick up their kid, a suitcase packed for a week in Delaware, halfway across the country and a football-field away from Jon’s heart. Eighteen years from now, when their baby graduates from high school and Dan shakes Jon’s hand, says they’ll be in touch about tuition._ _

__Jon clears his throat, but his voice isn’t any sturdier for it. “This doesn’t have to change anything.”_ _

__“Fuck it doesn’t.” Where Jon’s voice is all curves and weaves, Dan’s is sharp and angular, triangles and hexagons built out of all the surety that Jon doesn’t have. “If this changes your life, it changes mine, too.”_ _

__“I didn’t mean-“_ _

__“I always promised myself I’d be the kind of father my father was and-“ Dan closes his eyes, dark, dangerous flashes crossing the planes of his face like Jon’s never seen before. “And even if we’re not together in the traditional way, that’s the kind of parent I want to be. Unless-“ Dan deflates, his entire body sinking into the couch. “Unless you meant that you’re not going to keep it.”_ _

__Jon’s breath catches. It’s hard, even, to nod._ _

__“Fuck.” Dan’s feet fall back, flat on the floor. “Do you want to keep it?”_ _

__Jon grew up going to Church on Sundays, finding family and comfort and guidance in Sunday school and his mother’s habit of reading scripture on holidays. Jon’s not sure if it’s that, or the unrelenting awareness that this is _Dan’s_ child he’s carrying, but Jon’s had an instinctual and forceful rejection to even the thought of an abortion since the very beginning. _ _

__That protestation hasn’t really died down in the days since, even as he’s tried to think through the reality of his situation with the same logical detachment he tries to apply to polling numbers now. He’s just starting a new company, with every dime of profit being funneled back into the growth of the business. He’d made a promise, to Tommy and Lovett, that this would be it, his focus and his passion and his every good thought, for at least the next four years. The four worst years of the last century and a half, with the country crumbling down around him. A baby shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of a failed Democratic Party and the raging anti-carrier beliefs of a madman._ _

__“If-“ Jon flinches before he even finishes admitting it, out loud. “As long as- I mean, you get a say in this, too.”_ _

__“I would never make you do anything you don’t want to do,” Dan says, so quickly it kicks Jon head-first down a whirlpool, before he pauses. His eyes flick down to Jon’s stomach and he adds, more tempered and a lot wetter. “But, if you keep it, I’ll be with you - in LA or Boston or whatever damn All American town you want to be in - every step of the way.”_ _

__Jon risks a look at Dan’s eyes, seeing his own tears reflected back at him, and he chokes through a grin that the situation can’t quite hold back. “I do. I want to keep it. I want to-“ _I want to have our baby because it’s ours_. Jon coughs again, and he tries, “but, you don’t have to do that.” Dan makes a wounded noise, but Jon continues valiantly. “Move to LA, I mean. You can do all those things from here.”_ _

__Dan glares as he pulls his sweatshirt over his hands to rub ineffectually at his eyes. “I want this baby, too.”_ _

__Jon’s stomach takes that moment to grumble, but Dan’s eyes soften impossibly._ _

__He reaches for Jon’s plate. “Let me warm this up, then,” he glances at the wall clock, “you can stay in the guest room. It’s getting late and- I’ll text Tommy, tell him you’re staying.”_ _

__Jon nods and eats his heated dish as Dan disappears into the guest room. He can hear the creaking of drawers and the rustling of sheets, his mind blank as he eats without tasting anything._ _

__His mind stays blank until he pulls on the pair of boxers and Obama for President 2012 t-shirt Dan leaves out for him and climbs into bed. Through the door, he can hear Dan say, “hey Alyssa” before a door clicks shut as Dan goes out onto the balcony._ _

__Jon turns onto his side, one hand pillowed under his head and the other over their baby. Over the past six weeks, Jon’s spent a lot of time regretting that night. He had decided, before, that having and losing isn’t actually better than never having at all. Not now that he knows what it’s like to have Dan. Not now that he knows that Dan had him, and doesn’t want him._ _

__He can’t regret it anymore, though. It’s enough to know that Dan wants this baby as much as Jon does. It’s enough that their baby is going to have him even when Jon doesn’t._ _

__Jon closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the safety of knowing that Dan’s here, just down the hall, and lets himself drift off to sleep._ _


	2. Chapter 2

“Mr. Favreau.”

“Hey Doc,” Jon tries to joke, in an effort to keep the shaking out of his voice.

He’s not very successful, given the gentle, forgiving smile Dr. Rosen gives him. She rolls her chair closer as she snaps on a yellow rubber glove, glancing over Jon’s shoulder. “You’re new.”

She winks as she says it, but the joke isn’t any more successful than Jon’s own. His stomach flips and cracks, like dry dirt splitting under an earthquake. When the earth settles, it does so with half of Jon on either side.

Dan clears his throat.

“Tommy, the last, ahh-” Jon explains, quickly. “He was just a friend. This is, um, this is Dan, he’s, he’s-“

Dan holds out his hand, supplying “the father” as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

Dr. Rosen’s face splits into a rosy grin as she takes Dan’s hand with her gloved one. “I see.”

Dan’s handshake is firm, but his other hand fidgets against Jon’s bedsheet, his fingers reaching towards Jon’s, out of fear or jealousy or the deep, competitive fissure in his ego that led him to the White House and, then, into Jon’s bed in the first place.

“Well,” she laughs, as if the tension isn’t making the air thick between them. “Do you want to see your daughter?”

Jon’s mouth goes dry, but Dan says, “yes,” the word tripping over the gravel in his throat, before Jon can try to say anything at all.

Jon nods, and tries not to cover himself as she reaches for the hem of his t-shirt. Dan’s last memory of Jon shirtless is the best it’s ever going to be – with the moonlight shining through their hotel curtains, his body tan and flat in the most favorable light – and Jon would rather not strip away that last, artificial memory of want between them.

If Dan didn’t want him then, there’s no way Dan will want him now. Not as Dr. Rosen rolls his shirt to bunch under his armpits. Not with his skin growing pale and soft after months of hiding under shirts and sweatshirts. Not with the thickening around his hips and the rounding of his stomach.

Dan, though, isn’t looking at Jon. When Jon glances up, his cheeks already flushed and an apology on his tongue, Dan’s eyes are wide and trained on the monitor.

She’s still so small. Splotches of black and white and grey that Jon can only make out with Dr. Rosen’s direction. She points at the screen, tracing the fuzzy outline of their daughter’s head, her tiny hands, the curve of her spine, still forming and molding into someone that will look like half of Dan and half of him.

Dr. Rosen flips her wrist, the gel cool against Jon’s stomach, and a heartbeat fills the room. A series of erratic, strong thumps, a rhythm that Jon feels his own heart settle into.

“We woke her,” Dr. Rosen offers. “It’ll steady out.”

Jon laughs, wet and thick. “She has your temper.”

Dan chuckles. He reaches for Jon’s hand, twisting their fingertips together.

***

Jon’s distracted.

Jon’s been distracted since he got back from the doctor the morning before, armed with a handful of prenatal prescriptions and a copy of the ultrasound, crumpled in his back pocket.

If he’s really honest, he’s been distracted since he went to the doctor’s that first time, since she smiled at him, asked, gently but firmly, “is it possible you could be pregnant?” and had flipped his world upside down.

Really, though, it’s not the ultrasound or the baby or the looming Pod they need to record in a few hours. 

It’s the jelly donut he’s been craving since his nausea woke him long before dawn. Second trimester morning sickness is normal in male pregnancies, according to the string of articles linked in the _CM Is Having A Baby_ Slack channel Lovett created five minutes before Jon came out to the rest of the staff. Normal or not, though, Jon’s sick of waking in time to engage with east coast Twitter before the morning shows even start.

Jon yawns, blinking as he turns from his laptop to his phone, hoping the editorial section of the NY Times app can hold his attention where the editorial section of the NY Times website cannot.

Next to him, Tommy’s rhythmically clicking the top of his highlighter as he does some background reading for Pod Save the World.

Across their brand new, not-his-kitchen-table office, Lovett is frowning at the Pod outline. His bright pink headphones are pulled low over his ears and, every few minutes, he furiously hen-pecks across the keys.

Jon’s eyes blur. He’d really like that donut.

He’s just about to get up and hunt for something - maybe NatureBox sent them a sunflower cracker with sugarless strawberry jam - to quell his craving, when Leo’s ears perk up. His tail thumps against Jon’s leg and Jon follows his gaze to the door, where Dan’s squeezing into the office. He’s using his foot to push Pundit back as he balances two Dunkin Donuts boxes under a shy, careful smile.

Tanya swings in her chair, groaning when she sees the boxes. “No, nope, reject, take those away. My knees can’t take any more post-donut 5ks. LA potholes are killer.”

“We passed a $40 billion infrastructure bill five months ago, you’d think we could fix a few potholes or, I don’t know, maybe finish construction on the fucking Beverly Center,” Lovett agrees as he slides out of his chair to fend Pundit off of Dan’s legs and steal a cruller.

“That’s not fair,” Dan chides as he grabs a donut from the box and wraps it carefully in a napkin. “There’s still at least five shades of Home Depot pastel yellow for them to try before they can choose the right one to match the exhaust and the scaffolding.”

Lovett stops mid-bite to bang his head against his desk.

Dan drops the napkin-wrapped donut next to Jon’s hand. There’s strawberry jam oozing out the sides.

It’s too early, still, to feel the baby kick, but his stomach somersaults as he breaks off a huge chunk. “How did you guess?”

“Sixth sense,” Dan winks.

Jon grunts as the jam oozes down his fingers.

Dan clears his throat, glancing away, but Jon can still see him roll his eyes as he argues, “no need for magic. You give yourself away on Twitter every time.”

Jon reaches for another bite. “Maybe Twitter is magic.”

“Only the darkest, most evil incarnation,” Lovett argues, as he pulls his leg under him and ignores the way Pundit sits at his feet, gazing imploringly up at his donut.

“Turn on CNN.” Tommy looks up, pulling his earbuds out of his ears and starting, a little, when he sees Dan.

It’s been weeks since Dan moved into a small, basic one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, around about the same time as Crooked Media had moved from Jon’s house into a small, basic, four-room office across from a strip club. CM HQ does have running water, though, and Dan’s place has forks and knives and even a blender Tommy and Hanna had given him as a moving in gift. “I don’t know,” Tommy had offered with an embarrassed shrug, but Lovett had exclaimed “margaritas,” and taken it into Dan’s kitchen to plug it in.

Jon had printed and framed a photo of Dan and POTUS, a private one Pete Souza had had to dig up when Jon had asked. He’d felt stupidly shy when he’d presented it to Dan, like the gift was half a thank you – for giving this a go, for not once questioning his place in their baby’s life, for loving her, already, as much as Jon does – and half a rebuke for leaving the tethers of his life in San Francisco even as he moved, physically, three blocks from Jon and their daughter.

It hangs in Dan’s living room, above his Ikea sofa, the only decoration outside of the small, grainy copy of the first ultrasound photo Jon had given him in San Francisco. It’s crinkled in the corners, smudged from Jon’s fingers and Dan’s attempts to smooth it out.

Jon’s tried not to look at it too closely, the few times he’s been to the apartment.

Since then, Dan’s presence has become familiar if not yet routine. Tommy shakes his head, following the lines of Dan’s body to the donut in Jon’s hand, and visibly rearranges his expectations. Tommy’s cheeks are flushed, like he wants to laugh, except for- “Turn on the TV,” he repeats.

Lovett scrambles for the remote with sticky fingers, bitching “we really need to get all our phones set up so we don’t need an additional remote-” as the TV flickers to life, then freezes.

“We’re being told that the bill comes even as Planned Parenthood and others worked all weekend to stop it. The ACLU is already readying a lawsuit.”

Below the CNN panel, the ticker tape reads _Trump’s War on Civil Rights: House introduces anti-carrier healthcare bill_.

“President Trump has already gone on record-“

“As far as we’re calling Twitter ‘on record.’”

“-that he’ll sign the bill if the House passes it. The real question is whether this is the first salvo in an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act without having to go through the entire repeal process? Or is this, like the transgender military ban a few months ago, an attack on groups that his base doesn’t support?”

“Can we even call it an attack on civil rights when Obamacare didn’t actually give carriers equal rights under ACA in the first place?”

“That’s a good question. After the break, more on the House’s new bill and an interview with carrier expert, Dr. Salles.”

Lovett mutes the TV.

The room feels small, like all the oxygen is being swallowed by Tommy’s dark, worried stare and Lovett’s flushed, guilty refusal to catch Jon’s eyes. Jon can feel Dan’s fingers, hanging in the air inches above his shoulder, the heat of Dan’s body too much, too hot, too demanding, even at that distance. Jon’s stomach flips and, before he can stop himself, he places his hand on his stomach, like, maybe, his touch can keep her safe from the walls that are closing in around him.

Tommy’s phone buzzes, a series of bright, cheery charms. He reaches for it, flipping it off the table and breaking eye contact so he can lean down to stop the alarm. “The Pod.”

Lovett bites his lip. “We can postpone, just a few minutes, till we can gather a little more information-”

Jon swallows, hears himself say, hollow and from far away, “we don’t comment on breaking news.”

Lovett opens his mouth to argue, then closes it.

Tommy shoves his phone into his back pocket and pushes his chair back. “Right.”

Jon nods, shoving his own chair away from his desk. Dan steps back, pulling his hand away and shoving it into his pocket. His shoulders hunch inwards.

Jon leaves the last bite of his donut on his desk and heads into the studio.

***

Jon wipes the sweat out of his eyes with his elbow. The sun is beating down against the LA pavement and rising again in columns of steam. His fingers slip and slide against his lock screen.

“Are we running or fighting bots on Twitter?” Tommy asks, glancing sideways as he jogs in place at the stoplight.

Jon leans his shoulder against the lamppost, scowling down at his phone as he wipes it furiously against his worn cotton t-shirt. “We’re doing both.”

Tommy shakes his head. There’s a long, dark line of sweat down his back. “You,” he accuses, his breath hitched and shallow, “are not that great a multitasker.”

The light changes, and Tommy’s halfway through the crosswalk before Jon realizes he’s gone. “No shit,” he grumbles, as he finally gets his phone unlocked and meets Tommy on the other side. He narrowly misses getting clipped by a motorcycle turning right on red.

“Give me that before you get yourself killed.” Tommy reaches for Jon’s phone, snatching it out of his hand – “you’re tweeting for two now” – and glancing down at Jon’s feed.

Tommy stops, mid-stride, his back jerking and his calf muscles flinching. 

Jon lets himself jog an extra few steps, automatically counting the calories in his head, before stopping. “Are we running,” he parrots, without turning around, “or are we fighting bots on Twitter?”

“We’re fighting bigots on Twitter,” Tommy bites back. His cheeks are flushed, as much from scrolling through Jon’s mentions as from the sun beating down on the pale skin of his neck. “Or, not fighting, as the case may be.”

Jon flinches. It’s been over a week since the anti-carrier healthcare bill was introduced in committee, and, beyond those first CNN panels, liberals - Crooked Media included - have mostly stayed away from the issue. Just as they had during the ACA fight almost a decade ago. Single-payer, transgender surgeries, and carrier care, the three scrooges of the liberal healthcare fight.

To Jon’s unending guilt, he didn’t push then. Sure, he railed at Joe Lieberman as much as the next Obama staffer – Lovett excluded – for putting the final nail in the public option. And sure, he had made careful, perfunctory nods towards transgender and carrier rights in meetings with the most liberal members of the caucus, but no one, himself included, had believed those statements had any teeth behind them.

It had always been a historical shrug, an asterisk on his greatest accomplishment in federal government, a necessary compromise for a president who believed in compromise. Had, until he sat down in a doctor’s office and was blindsided with all the latent prejudice that went into that ambivalence. Until he saw, in black and white, the baby growing inside of him, the little girl who might have Dan’s fingers or Dan’s eyes and who’s reliant on his health for her own. And his smallest, least memorable failure became his most personal regret.

What was once a shrug is now a straightjacket and what was once an asterisk keeps him up at all hours of the night and day, scrolling through the anti-carrier hashtags on Twitter. Reading and reading and reading until his eyes are red and tired and his outside world matches the thirty-six years of internalized ambivalence, if not outright carrier-phobia, he hadn’t realized he’d been shouldering.

Not until an asshole representative from Arkansas introduced a discriminatory bill and Jon’s first, second, and third responses were _still_ to do nothing.

Jon reaches for his phone, his fingers brushing with Tommy’s, hot and humid and too much contact, as he says, by rote, “Twitter’s a cesspool. Fighting wouldn’t make a difference.”

Tommy snorts as he starts jogging again. “That’s never stopped you before.”

 _It’s never been so personal before_. “It has,” Jon argues, as he falls into step. His legs are tired, but he pushes them further. “Sometimes.”

“Not often enough.”

Jon snorts. “Well I can’t, like, argue with that.”

“I know,” Tommy laughs, “that’s why I said it.”

Tommy leaves him on the corner Melrose and Santa Monica, jogging backwards for a moment as he calls, “don’t start any fights until at least lunch time,” before turning and taking off at a speed Jon can no longer keep up with.

Jon pulls, ineffectually, at the hem of his t-shirt, as he stops into the Sunoco for a liter and a half of water. He pours half over his head, shivering as his t-shirt sticks and folds around his love handles and the slight roundness in his stomach, before he ducks into his house, as quickly as he can.

It’s not as quiet as he left it and Leo doesn’t greet him at the door. Jon frowns as he toes of his sneakers and follows the low murmur of the Sunday shows into the family room. The early morning sun is shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and Jon stops in the doorway to watch the way the light glints off Leo’s curls and Dan’s hand, splayed across Leo’s stomach.

Leo’s tags jingle as he rolls over, resting his head and his front paws on Dan’s thigh. He looks up at Jon with big, brown eyes, but doesn’t leave the couch.

Dan pauses mid-rant, his voice low under the sound of the TV in deference to, Jon assumes, Leo’s impressionable ears. His own eyes are wide and blue as he follows Leo’s gaze to Jon.

Jon swallows, forces himself to laugh. “Teaching my dog the finer points of tax policy?”

“It’s only right that he hears both sides before he forms an opinion,” Dan agrees, clearing his throat as he nods to the large, greasy paper bag on Jon’s coffee table. “I brought breakfast sandwiches.”

Jon bites back the instinct to say _I love you_ , like it’s a joke, like he’d say it to Lovett or Tommy or Josh, like it wouldn’t be weighed down by the memories of heat between them. “Thanks,” he says, instead. “I’m pretty gross. Just gonna shower, quick, then-”

Dan tightens his fingers in Leo’s fur. “Take your time. We’ll be here.”

Jon clears his throat, but his voice still pulses with the beat of his heart as he manages, “yeah,” before spinning on his socked feet and high-tailing it to the master bathroom.

He lets the room fill with steam, before stepping in. His body aches, with the run and the memories and the heat of the water as it beats against his neck. Where, just months ago, Dan had pressed his lips, his voice as low and gravely as it had been in the living room as he buried Jon’s name in the flush and rhythm of his skin.

Jon leans his head back against the tile, closing his eyes as he’s assaulted by images. Dan’s eyes, flashes of the warmest blue rimmed in dark, desperate circles, as he pulled pleasure from Jon’s body on the darkest day of their lives. Dan’s fingers, curled into Leo’s fur as he explains, in quiet and measured tones, the injustices of regressive tax policies. That same hand, large and steady, spread across the back of their daughter as he murmurs in that same low, unshakable tone.

Jon’s thighs shake with heat as he trails his hand down his unfamiliar body, his eyes wet under the spray and his breath hitching as he wraps his fingers around himself.

***

“What kind of sauce?” Lovett asks, kicking the base of Jon’s chair, glancing over the edge of his phone.

Jon lets his eyes drift away from the script as he tries, “hoppy cheddar sauce?,” and ignores the way his stomach gnaws with hunger despite the two breakfast burritos he’s already eaten before 9 am.

“Get me some sauce, make it hoppy.” Lovett nods. “Put it on a-“

“Pretzel bun,” Jon interrupts.

Lovett smirks. “You do listen.”

“I do,” Jon agrees. “But, honestly, I don’t even need the bun. I just want some hoppy cheddar sauce. I’ll eat it with my finger.”

“Or some chips.”

“Doritos,” Jon sighs out.

Lovett frowns. “I was thinking, like, Tostitos, maybe the blue corn kind if I’m really splurging but, sure, Doritos if you want some cheese with your cheese.”

Jon makes a noise that he hopes is only just over the line of impropriety.

Lovett laughs, but his eyes go, automatically to the hand Jon hadn’t realized was resting on his stomach. “Hey,” he asks, tilting his head, “is this hops like where the alcohol comes from? Is Blue Apron serving adults-only short-rib burgers?”

Jon’s shoulders tighten and he forces his hand to his thigh, squeezing tight. They’ve had this argument over and over again over the past few weeks, and Jon doesn’t want to have it again-

“I’m just saying,” Lovett continues, “seems like some fine print they should include. Burgers not acceptable for children and pregnant women. Or men.”

-but there’s little chance of that.

Jon grits his teeth. “There’s no alcohol in hops.”

“Hmm.” Lovett drops his elbow to the table, resting his chin in his hand. “Maybe I should have let you drag me on that brewery tour in Martha’s Vineyard that one time.”

“Maybe you should have.”

Lovett hums. “If you want some non-alcoholic hoppy cheddar sauce, go to www dot blueapron dot com and put in the code ‘crooked.’”

Jon takes a deep breath. “Blue apron is a better way to-”

“The Trump administration pretends to be pro-family while it’s making it harder for carrier parents to ensure the safety of their children.”

Jon freezes. 

Lovett kicks at Jon’s ankle and looks up from his phone.

Jon pulls his leg back, still reeling from the easy, casual way Lovett said _carrier parents_ as if he wasn’t picking at the most fraught decision of Jon’s life. “We’re cutting that.” He leaves a pause long enough for editing. “Blue apron is a better way to-”

Lovett’s jaw clenches. “We are not cutting it.”

“We definitely are.”

“Just because you don’t want to say anything,” Lovett spits, his voice harsh, “doesn’t mean we all want to sit on the sidelines while millions of Americans are denied the right to healthcare.”

Behind them, Jon feels the whoosh of denim as Elijah shifts. “Stop recording,” Jon orders, pulling out the voice he used to use with his writing staff, when he had staff who respected him rather than the young upstarts who are building Crooked Media into the juggernaut Lovett always claims it is, despite the best efforts of its founders. He doesn’t take his eyes from Lovett. “’We?’”

“Me.” Lovett shifts. “Dan. Tommy, sometimes, usually after a few drinks.”

Jon’s mouth is dry. He knows what they think; he knows what placating things they’ve told him. Tommy saying _I’ve got your back, whatever you decide_. Dan saying _I respect your need for privacy_ with his mouth and _any man I love would take a stand for those who can’t_ with his eyes, although Jon’s not quite sure if he’s been projecting the latter. Dan has always been Jon’s conscience, and he almost hopes that Dan has enough faith in him, still, to be telling Lovett, behind closed doors, that he believes Jon will do the right thing, eventually.

Whatever that right thing is.

The right thing for their daughter. The right thing for the Party and their best chances to take their country back in 2018. The right thing for all the carriers who could lose healthcare if they don’t win.

Jon swallows, wishing he knew what Dan really wanted him to do, wishing he know what he really wanted for himself, wishing he knew what was best for them and their daughter and the little unconventional family he’s still hoping they can build for her. “You’ve been talking about me?”

“No.” Lovett puts his phone, face down on the table, preparing for the eleventh round of a fight they’ve been having, on and off, for weeks. “No. We’ve been talking about an important policy that could affect the lives of millions of people who don’t-” He swallows, but doesn’t look away, as he finishes, “-have the same privileges you have.”

Jon wants to blame the hormones coursing through his bloodstream. He wants to blame the cocktail of pills Dr. Rosen has given him. He wants to blame anything but the rush of anger that’s been bubbling under the surface of his skin since he watched that CNN panel, driven by guilt and blinding fear and over thirty years of self-hatred, even if he hadn’t known, at the time, that it was directed at himself. 

“What do you know about it?” Jon asks, because Lovett’s a better, safer target than their employees standing behind them or his daughter growing inside him. “You don’t have the gene.”

Lovett flinches. “You’re right, I don’t.” He shakes his head, giving a small, bitter laugh that Jon hasn’t heard much since they started Crooked Media. “But you’ve known you’re a carrier for a few months, now. I’ve known I’m gay for thirty years. And I spent the first third of those running from myself and the next third writing speeches _for_ DADT and _against_ gay marriage. Don’t talk to me about settling for what the Party thinks is best, Jon, because I can go toe to toe with you, story for story, fucked up internalized prejudice for fucked up internalized prejudice.”

“It’s different,” Jon says, voice rising in the face of Lovett’s low insistence.

“Why?” Lovett rubs his left eye with the heel of his hand. “You keep saying that, but, just, give me one good reason why you shouldn’t use this incredible platform to take a stand.”

Jon can see the dark circles under Lovett’s eyes, almost as dark as his own since Lovett’s been struggling, wordlessly, to pick up the slack while Tommy’s been moving and Jon’s been wallowing. He can hear the frustrated threads of patience in Lovett’s voice. He can feel the tension between them, willing Jon not to make the same mistakes Lovett has made.

Jon swallows, letting his hand rest on his stomach. “It’s different because there’s a baby, now.”

Lovett lets his leg slide out from under his hip with a deep, unhappy, unconvinced sigh. He motions to Elijah. “Let’s roll again.”

Jon doesn’t lift his headphones as he leans towards the mic. “Blue Apron, a better way to-”

“-Joe Lieberman single-handedly destroyed the public option and the great people of Connecticut should never forget that-”

“-cook.”

Lovett slides his headphones onto the table and slides out of his chair. Pundit uncurls from the floor, her tail brushing against Jon’s legs as Lovett pauses, his fingers light on Jon’s shoulder. “Making the world a better place for our children, isn’t that what we’re doing all this for?”

Before Jon can look up, the blue curtain swishes open and closed.

Elijah clears his throat. “There’s a couple of pick-ups.”

“Yeah.” Jon clears his throats, reaching for his headphones and sliding them on. “What do you need?”

***

“Jon?”

Jon swears as he hears Dan’s key in the lock. Leo whines at his bedroom door and Jon holds a shirt over his bare chest as he lets Leo out and calls, “still getting dressed.”

“Take your time,” Dan calls back, then Jon hears the soft sounds of Dan crouching down to greet Leo.

Jon looks at the shirt in his hands and pulls it over his head. It’s tight, pulling at the seams around his hips and barely long enough to reach the waistband of his shorts. His shorts, which are zipped but unbuttoned over the stretch of his stomach.

He sighs, tugging at the collar and dropping it onto the growing pile of obscenely-fitting shirts already mounded on his bed. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, his khaki shirts low on his hips, the TommyJohn logo on his briefs a little blurry where it’s stretched and digging into his skin, creating rolls and folds that belong to a different body. A different Jon, who didn’t segue his naturally high metabolism into college sports, then into long nights and stress-induced gauntness in the White House. A Jon who knew this could happen, who planned this, who could spread his fingers from sternum to belly button and feel at home in this new, beloved body.

Lovett’s been sending him body positivity articles for the past few weeks, ever since they had to cancel livestreams or risk being outed by Jon’s continuing reluctance to act. “You know I’d love to give you all the time you need,” Lovett had said just a few days ago, his tone belaying any form of love, as he dropped a magazine on Jon’s desk, “but this is a time sensitive kind of thing.” The magazine claimed to, under the glossy photo of a rail thin model with a perfect basketball stomach, answer the age-old question: _How to love your body when you’re expecting?_

Jon appreciates the gesture and sort of wishes he'd taken Lovett up on his offer for a trip to the mall. He doesn’t think, however, that a few hours communing with his stomach will do anything to undermine the sharp, desperate feeling of disassociation Jon feels every time he passes a mirror or the glass windows in the Little Marco conference room or accidentally flips his camera into selfie mode.

“Hey,” Dan calls, sticking his head around the open edge of Jon’s door. Jon feels his chest flush as he locks eyes with Dan’s, wide and the deepest, clearest shade of blue. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t realize- Just wanted to make sure you hadn’t fallen into the toilet or something.”

Dan’s eyes drop to Jon’s stomach, before he straightens his shoulders and forces them up again.

Jon can’t blame him. The last time Dan saw him half-undressed, his vision was obscured by a mini-bar’s worth of tequila and the grief of Trump’s impending inauguration, and it’s a shock for Jon, too, to be confronted with the very real and inescapable proof of what’s changed between then and now.

“I’ll just-” Dan flushes and drops his gaze, “text Lovett and Tommy, tell them we’ll be a little late.”

Jon nods, before realizing that Dan isn’t looking at him and murmuts, “thanks.” Dan doesn’t close the door behind him, and Jon reaches far back into his closet, grabbing the oldest, most worn t-shirt he can reach. It has an academic decathlon logo on the front, but it settles, loose and long, around his hips, and he doesn’t look in the mirror again before he joins Dan out in the living room.

“Sorry, I-”

Dan shrugs. Leo’s leash is looped around his wrist and he has an LL Bean bag already packed with Leo’s paraphernalia. Jon tries not to think about Dan - standing in this same front hallway, a diaper bag thrown over one shoulder and their daughter resting on his collarbone - as he climbs into the passenger seat of his own convertible and lets Leo settle into his lap.

Tommy, Lovett, and Tanya have already staked out a brunch table on the patio out back of the restaurant. Pundit’s curled under Lovett’s chair, and when he sees her, Leo pulls at Dan’s wrist until he jogs the rest of the distance to the table.

“Pushover,” Jon mutters, at the same time as Lovett grins, dimples deep in his cheeks, “if that works, you’re both in so much trouble.”

Dan’s been flushed, the skin behind his ears pink and warm, since the incident in Jon’s bedroom, but it spreads down his neck as he falls into the chair next to Lovett. “And the last time you said no to Pundit was-”

Lovett glances under his chair, where Leo has his mouth around Pundit’s neck. “Pundit doesn’t need discipline. She’s an angel.”

Jon snorts as he pulls the menu towards him. There’s a fresh-made bacon and parmesan spaghetti that calls to him, but when the waitress comes, he thinks about the academic decathlon logo on his shirt and orders the kale and pine nut salad.

Dan orders the spaghetti and an extra plate.

Under the table, Lovett kicks at Jon’s ankle, but Jon ignores him. Jon continues ignoring him when their food arrives and Dan meticulously measures out half his pasta onto the extra plate and nudges it towards Jon. Jon pushes the salad between them.

“So,” he says, as he pretends not to see the way Dan drops the kale to the floor for the dogs, rather than eating it himself. “We’re here to talk tour?”

Tanya nods, unlocking her iPad with the hand she’s not using to pull apart a cinnamon roll. “We need to contact venues as soon as possible. Here’s the schedule we had penciled in but-” She glances at Jon as she puts the iPad in the middle of the table. “I think we need to change it.”

“Jon can’t fly after-” Dan starts.

Jon steps in before Dan can shave a few weeks off the doctor’s estimate. “Mid-August.”

“End of July,” Dan corrects, reaching for another piece of kale.

“Flying is the least of our concerns,” Tommy muses, raising a pointed eyebrow at the swell of Jon’s belly, pressing obviously into the table edge. “Can’t really hide that on stage.”

“I’ll say something by July,” Jon bites back, like it’s Tommy’s fault that he hasn’t come out before now. Like it’s Tommy’s fault that he’s going to have to take Lovett up on paternity shopping and start wearing those shorts with the elastic waistbands that his mother keeps sending him links to. Like it’s Tommy’s fault that congressional Republicans have complicated an already fretful process of coming out with their despicable fucking healthcare bill.

“There’s-” Tanya bites her lip, as if she's reading his mind. Which is easier than he'd like to think, these days, what with the amount of time he spends thinking about his relationship to the bill and the lack of time he spends thinking about literally anything else. “We have an invitation to speak at the healthcare rally in DC.”

Jon’s heart leaps and he sets his fork down, as the image of himself - standing on a makeshift stage under the blazing DC summer sun, wearing those damn stretch pants and a pregnancy top – flashes before him. How can he stand up there and _not_ talk about the finer points of ACA repeal that affect carriers, specifically? How can he stand up there and talk about carrier rights, when the effects of his choices spread much further than himself now? Himself and his child. Himself and his child and Dan.

“Couldn’t do that without-” Tommy trails off, nodding unnecessarily at Jon’s stomach.

“Could,” Lovett corrects with a shrug. “But that would make us assholes.”

Jon feels Dan’s fingers squeeze the back of his neck. It's comforting, a reminder that he's here, and on Jon’s side in name if not in soul. Jon shivers.

Tanya hums. “Either way, a swing through the midwest, and a possible last stop in DC?”

“Make sure we stop in Wisconsin,” Lovett jokes.

Jon groans, throwing his head back and pressing into Dan’s fingers for just a moment, before pushing his chair back. “I’ll think about it,” he promises. “But right now, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom if we’re heading to the beach next.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lovett says, as he stretches his arms over his head and glares at Dan. “Pundit could use a beach run, after all the caesar dressing you’ve been feeding her.”

Dan pats Pundit’s side with no regrets.

The table’s empty when Jon gets back, and he heads to the front of the restaurant, grumbling about Dan’s overprotective instincts. He stands on the edge of the sidewalk, shading his eyes against the sun as he peers down 2nd. Unconsciously, he rests his free hand on his stomach, rubbing gently as the car pulls into view, Leo’s paws hanging over the edge of the passenger window.

“I can walk to the parking lot,” he complains.

“I know you can,” Dan shrugs, as he leans over to push Jon’s door open. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”

Jon pushes Leo into the back with Lovett and scoots in.

***

The picture doesn’t filter through Jon’s mentions until the next morning.

A semi-neutral “in venice for work and sighting b-list celebrities everywhere! is @podsa co-host @jonfavs a carrier?!” caption over a photo of Jon on the sidewalk outside Rose Café, his hand resting over the obvious proof of his pregnancy.

Jon doesn’t know how long he stares at the photo, his hands shaking violently, before his phone buzzes with a series of texts from Lovett to their founders ‘ groupchat.

_b-list??????_

Followed by, _as long as you refute that, we’ll take the rest_

Tommy adds _seconded_ immediately.

Jon screencaps the conversation, before flipping back to Twitter. He can’t breathe through the fear in his throat and he can’t think through the hurricane in his head, thrashing against his skull as the winds pick up _not yet, I’m not ready yet_ and rain down _you’ve never backed down from a challenge before_ as easy and insubstantial as if his thoughts are wicker furniture on an ill-placed porch in Kansas.

He closes his eyes, feeling dizzy and unmoored.

He opens them again. His thumb hovers over the retweet button, and he takes a deep breath as he presses it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this fic almost 8 months ago, now, and I wanted to give up on it so many times, but Maddie wouldn't let me. So, I am finally finishing it just under the wire of 2018 (last chapter will be up on New Years Eve ;)). Merry Christmas, Maddie!

“You know what the worst part of your pregnancy is?” Lovett asks as he hands over a bucket of popcorn.

Jon rests his controller on the swell of his stomach. On the screen, Toad jumps in excitement with Lovett’s name under him. “Hmm?”

“The terror it’s reeking on my diet,” Lovett sighs, leaning back against Jon’s shoulder and crossing his ankles next to Jon’s on the coffee table. Pundit sniffs at their feet, before sitting, patiently, between their knees. Lovett reaches into the popcorn bucket, tossing her a piece before starting in on the rest of the handful. “Since I can no longer distract you with alcohol, I’ve had to get creative with food.”

Jon raises an eyebrow at the bucket between them. “Creative?”

Lovett tilts his head, affronted. “I added that awful jalapeno cheese flavoring you like, didn’t I?”

“You did do that,” Jon agrees. He holds a piece up to inspect. “It’s a poor substitute for a spicy gin and tonic, but I appreciate the effort.”

Lovett taps Jon’s ankle with his socked toes. “You better. I went to a lot of trouble to get Elijah to pick that up for you.”

Jon snorts.

“I paid him back.” Lovett rolls his eyes. “I needed a new Cash App story, anyway. Even I’m getting sick of all the dollars people paying me for ‘being gay,’” Lovett raises his fingers in air quotes. They’re coated in cheese and butter and Leo scrambles over Jon’s lap to get to them. “Or ‘wearing gay footwear.’”

Jon laughs. “You don’t.”

Lovett raises an eyebrow. “I really do.” He grabs his phone from the coffee table and pulls up the Cash App, handing it over. “And fuck you, my footwear is awesome. When was the last time you wore pink Nikes?”

“You have me there,” Jon agrees, spreading his right hand over his stomach. “But I don’t really need the shoes to accessorize my gayness.”

Lovett’s face softens, but he catches himself and scoffs, “you can’t use that one forever.”

“For a few months more, though,” Jon shrugs, as he lifts Lovett’s phone around Leo and scrolls though his Cash App transactions. “Spencer. Spencer. Tommy. Spencer. Some guy named Chad who wants to buy you a drink but only sent $5?”

“Clearly never been to LA,” Lovett agrees.

“Brendan. Dan.” Jon swallows around Dan’s name. It’s gotten easier, over the past few months, to think of Dan’s easy, casual friendships with Tommy and Lovett and Elijah and Tanya and not ache for the way they used to be. For the way Dan used to choose him, every time. For the days when Dan’s name filled _Jon’s_ Cash App feed. For the hundreds of times, over the decade of their friendship, when Dan would play his mood like a harpsichord, when Dan would know where Jon’s mind was at long before Jon did. Before that instinct had paved a path directly to the mini bar at the Georgetown Hilton.

Lovett taps his ankle again and pulls Pundit into his lap.

Jon pulls back from Dan’s name and keeps scrolling. “Tommy, Spencer. Some guy named Brad who - look at that - paid you a dollar for ‘repping the gay voice.’”

“Take that, Ira,” Lovett chuckles.

Jon laughs. “Spencer, Spencer, a few more Spencers, what? Is Spencer your new bank?” Jon narrows his eyes over Lovett’s phone. “If you’re having money problems, we can talk about this whole not paying ourselves thing.”

“Sometimes I leave my wallet at home,” Lovett shrugs. “Or in the back of an Uber. Or at Eric’s and I don’t make it out there again for a few weeks.”

“I started a company with you.” Jon deadpans, raising a faux eyebrow. He spreads his fingers exaggeratedly over his stomach. “My baby’s future is wrapped up in this endeavor.”

“Now, that was your high risk gamble, wasn’t it?”

Jon laughs. “No risk, no gain.”

“That’s what I always say.” Lovett shrugs. “Right before I lose two grand at the craps table.”

“Remind me to tell Elijah not to go to Vegas with you.”

“Don’t you dare.” Lovett waves his fingers at Jon. “Can we stop making fun of my money habits and play another round? I haven’t kicked your ass in at least twenty minutes.”

Jon snorts. “Yeah, but, if I kick yours this time you owe me-” He goes to hand over Lovett’s phone when it buzzes. He eyes flick downwards, reflexively, and he freezes.

_.@jonfavs spreading carrier propaganda from his @crookedmedia bully pulpit. libs should be disgraced #repeal #obamacare_

“Jon-” Lovett’s eyes narrow and he sits up, crossing his ankles under himself and dislodging Pundit. “What is it? Is it the baby? Did she-?”

Jon’s fingers shake as he hands Lovett his phone. Leo whines and licks at his wrist, where it’s resting over the baby.

Lovett frowns as he looks down, then he swears. “Shit. Jon. You weren’t supposed to see these.”

“These?” Jon asks. Or thinks he asks, but he can’t hear his voice for the pounding in his ears. Leo, though, whines again and tilts his head at Jon. Jon ruffles his ears, incongruous with the pounding of his heart.

“Yeah.” Lovett taps his phone, then takes a deep breath, looking up, but his eyes are focused on Jon’s shoulder rather than his eyes. “I’ve, ahh, been blocking your mentions. The bad ones.”

“They’ve been-” Jon swallows, repeats, because he’d thought- “they’ve been dieing down. They’ve been, for the last couple weeks, they’ve been- better,” he finishes, weakly.

“They have,” Lovett sighs, deeply, through his nose. “They’ve been better. A lot better. But-” 

“But?”

Lovett bites his lip and shrugs. “But they haven’t gone away _entirely_. You really thought-? I thought for sure you knew what I was doing and were too grateful to call me on it.”

“No,” Jon says, so quickly that his throat burns. “No, I- I still don’t even know- How did you-?”

Lovett finally meets his eyes. “You probably should choose something a little harder than Leo’s birthday for your password.”

“You hacked my Twitter account?” 

Lovett scrunches his nose. “Is it really hacking when it’s so easy?”

“Yes,” Jon says, flatly.

“Well, then,” Lovett says, “I guess I did.” He twists his body sideways, letting his phone fall into his lap as he reaches out to scratch between Leo’s ears. “Look, I don’t regret it. You have so many more important things to be worrying about than a few trolls looking to trade _an unborn child’s_ reputation for a few healthcare repeal votes. It’s despicable and if neither you nor the rest of Twitter have to see it?” Lovett shrugs. “I’m not losing any sleep over that.”

Jon lets out the long, heavy sigh that, he realizes now, he’s been holding since the picture was released. “I think,” he says, slowly, not sure where on the joking spectrum he’s landing, “that it would have done me some good to get in a few Twitter fights.”

Lovett laughs, like it’s choked out of him in surprise. “While, normally, I’d be all for you making a fool of yourself on the internet, you’re tweeting for two now. Focus on,” he waves his hands towards Jon’s stomach, “all that. Leave the witty barbs to me.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Tommy made that joke months ago.”

“Plagiarism is the highest form of flattery.” Lovett scratches Leo’s head one more time, then he sits up and reaches for his controller. “Can we play another round? I think you were about to make a wager?”

“Yeah,” Jon swallows. “Yeah, I was.” His chest feels big enough to burst and he taps his fingers against Lovett’s knee, a small, careful acknowledgement.

Lovett grins. “So, what are you going to give me when I wipe the floor with you?”

Jon rolls his eyes.

***

Over the next few weeks, Lovett continues to block the worst Twitter offenders. Or, Jon presumes he does, because his mentions are mostly limited to well wishes, actual questions about ACA repeal, and - Lovett’s new favorite genre of tweet - speculations about the baby’s other father.

Lovett starts a Slack channel dedicated specifically to _Baby Daddy Conspiracies_ and, judging by the sheer number and increasing ludicracy of the tweets, he and Tommy spend half their days searching for the funniest ones.

Jon’s scrolling through the Slack channel absently on Wednesday evening, reading the best ones out loud. “This one thinks Lovett’s an alien who was dropped in WeHo to, what?, impregnate gay liberal Hollywood with alien progeny?”

Tommy laughs without looking up from the carrots he’s cutting. “That was Lovett’s favorite.”

“For good reason,” Jon agrees, then moves to the next one. “This woman has an awfully high opinion of me. George Clooney? If I was rolling into parties on George Clooney’s arm, I wouldn’t be working late on a Wednesday night.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow and points the knife at Jon’s dark laptop. “Working so hard you can’t possibly cut a brussel sprout I see. You know, when I said ‘Hanna’s out of town, we should eat my blue apron meal before it goes bad,’ I kinda thought this would be a co-production.”

“Well, that was stupid of you,” Jon shrugs. “I do have to edit this outline. Dan’s on CNN late tonight and we shouldn’t leave it all for the morning.”

Tommy snorts. “And by ‘we’ you mean ‘Dan.’”

Jon shrugs and says, “I’m carrying the kid, he can pick up some slack on the Pod,” purely for the thrill of how easily it comes to him.

It surprises a laugh out of Tommy. “You’re an asshole.” He hands over the Blue Apron card. “At least read me the directions.”

Jon glances at the card. “You’re on step one, we’ve got some time,” he grumbles, resting his elbows on the counter and turning back to his phone. “This one is implying that Leo is actually my first child, cursed by a witch.”

Tommy shrugs, “would explain that face,” and reaches over to put a piece of carrot on the counter for Leo, where he’s sitting next to Jon and following every one of Tommy’s movements.

Jon scratches between his ears. “Old man.”

Leo snuffles at Jon’s hand but, not finding any food, turns back to Tommy.

“Oh, pundit odds.” Jon scrolls down. “4:1 for Rachel Maddow. I don’t know how that would even work, but-” Jon keeps scrolling. “The baby could do worse.”

“Keep reading,” Tommy warns.

“6:1 for Colbert,” Jon shrugs. “That’s a lot of Catholic guilt for one baby, but-”

Tommy laughs. “Least of your problems.”

“7:2 for Ezra Klein. I hope the baby has his eyes,” Jon jokes.

“Dan made that same joke,” Tommy rolls his eyes.

“Oh.” Jon’s stomach clenches around the memory of Dan’s eyes, the clearest, brightest blue, searching for Jon’s in fear and joy, anger and pride. If the baby has Dan’s eyes- 

Jon keeps scrolling. “What the fuck? 8:1 for Chris Wallace and,” Jon drops his phone phone to the counter. “8:3 for Tucker Carlson.”

Tommy snickers. “That was my favorite.”

“I hate you.” Jon reaches for the Blue Apron card. “And the lamb’s supposed to be in the oven now. Have you even pre-set it?”

“If you’re in a hurry, get off your ass and set it yourself.”

Jon grumbles, but he slides off the stool, much less gracefully than he would have even a month ago, and crosses to the oven. He grabs the remote, turning up the volume on his way, and CNN fills the room.

“No, no, don't put words in my mouth,” Dan says. He fills half the split screen, a red and blue striped tie a little askew around his neck, and his jacket buttoned. “What I’m saying is that preserving the ACA is the most important thing Democrats can do, morally _and_ politically.”

Tommy snorts, “assholes,” as Jon sets the oven and returns to his stool. 

“Some of the highest courts in the land have ruled that ACA doesn’t support carrier healthcare rights. Is this anti-carrier healthcare bill, then, really a step towards ACA repeal?”

“It's the first step,” Dan frowns. Jon can see his deepening crow’s feet, even through his smaller kitchen TV. “Any bill that takes away healthcare from Americans is a negative step for this country.”

“Sure, in the abstract. But Democrats have a lot to focus on right now. Mueller’s appointment. The Paris Climate deal seems to be on the precipice. ACA repeal is making its way through the Senate. Is this anti-carrier bill a distraction?”

“The lives of children are never a distraction,” Dan bites back.

“In politics, every bill is a distraction. Every moment spent on this bill is a moment we’re not spending on ACA repeal writ large.”

“Carrier healthcare is a part of ACA writ large, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Dan’s voice is steel. “Now, if you choose not to listen to me-”

“I am listening, Dan. I just think you’re taking it for granted that this is an issue the Democratic Party wants to stake a moral claim to.”

“Fuck,” Tommy whispers. He puts his knife down and stares at the TV. Jon reaches over to pull Leo into his lap.

“I can’t speak for Party leadership,” on the TV, Dan shrugs, his shoulders stiff, “but I know what it should do. Any issue that would take away rights from Americans is an important issue. It’s as simple as that.”

“That’s a little simplistic, don’t you think? Carriers only voted at a 15% rate in 2016. This is a moral question more than a political one and it may actually do political damage.”

Dan’s eyes flash ice blue and Jon’s heart beats rapidly against his rib cage. “Carriers vote at a low rate because most carriers can’t vote. The majority of carriers live at or below the poverty line. Over 60% of carriers are dogged by crippling medical debt from childbirth that haunts them their entire lives. 

“They have trouble finding child care and, if they can find someone willing to watch their children, they cannot afford it. Carriers all over the country have reported harassment at voting locations. A precinct in Georgia turned away 15 carriers in 2016 for putting male on their ID.

“Carriers and their children are raised in a society that treats them like second-class citizens. It’s a small wonder that even 15% of them vote, honestly. I plan on giving her every advantage, but even my own kid will face-”

Dan freezes. His face fills the screen and Jon watches as his throat moves, struggling around the words to backtrack.

Dan starts again. “Every carrier kid has to overcome a series of systematic disadvantages, financial and educational and political and, yes, some of them are moral. If we can start making a dent in just one of those disadvantages, like healthcare, then, yes, of course we should do it. It’s a no brainer.”

“Okay, well, thank you to correspondent Dan Pfeiffer for being here to talk about healthcare today. When we come back from break, the Comey firing. We’ll be right back.”

CNN gives way to a Purina Pet Food ad.

Tommy takes a deep breath. “Dan’s a good man.”

Jon nods. His throat is dry.

“And,” Tommy tries, slowly. He’s watching Jon with light, slitted eyes, like he’s worried Jon will startle if he speaks too fast. “It was bound to happen sometime.”

Jon nods again. On the counter, his phone rings and he looks down to see Dan and Leo smiling back at him. He swipes to accept it and slides off the stool, moving down the hallway and into his bedroom. He shuts the door behind him.

“Jon?” Dan’s voice is muffled around the sounds of CNN’s backstage commotion. “Please tell me-”

“I was watching,” Jon tells him. “You-”

“I didn’t mean to say it,” Dan says, quickly. He sounds apologetic but also- breathless, like he’s been running a marathon and can finally stop to breath.

Jon picks at a string on the edge of his comforter. “I know.”

“I never-” Dan’s voice shakes. “So much of your agency has been taken from you over the past few weeks and I never wanted to add to that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s your baby, too.” Warmth spreads down Jon’s spine, every time he thinks about it. “I wasn’t- it wasn’t about you. I just- there was no reason for both of us to be dealing with all this bullshit. I was trying to spare you.”

“I don’t want to be spared,” Dan bites back, his voice gruff. “I told you, Jon. I’m in this. All the way.”

Jon nods. “You did.”

“And, frankly,” Dan continues, “I’m offended that you thought I could read all this hatred toward you and our daughter and not be- Fuck, you have no idea how hard this has been.”

Jon swallows. He hadn’t thought- Jon hasn’t thought much at all beyond his own frustration with Twitter trolls and his own body and the new, ever-present responsibility for this baby that overwhelms everything else. Since Dan moved into the small apartment down the street, Jon’s been taking advantage of Dan’s steady, quiet presence at the periphery of his life. The way he always has. The way he promised himself he wouldn’t anymore, the way he knows he can’t, if he has any hope of keeping Dan an everyday presence in their daughter’s life.

“Sorry,” Dan apologizes, again, clipped. “I didn’t- I’m not helping anything.”

“You are,” Jon says, quickly. “I’m sorry I’ve been so selfish.”

Dan’s starched shirt scratches as he shrugs against the phone. “I never want you to feel more uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” Jon promises. “You’re not. We’ve gotta talk to Jon and Tommy about how to do it, but, you can get off the bench. If that’s what you want?”

“Yeah,” Dan swallows. “Yeah, that’s- I’d like that.”

Dan drops his phone to his chest and Jon can hear the muffled sounds of other voices.

“Sorry, that was the producers. I’ve got another hit in a couple minutes.”

“Okay.” Jon breathes deeply. He closes his eyes, grateful for the phone line between them. “I’m really glad you’re her father.”

Dan chokes and his voice is soft when he manages, “me too.”

Jon sits, for long minutes, in the dark of his bedroom, before he takes a deep breath and goes to join Tommy and Leo in the kitchen.

***

“Pod Save America is brought to you by Parachute.” 

Lovett leans closer to the mic, tipping his chair onto its front legs as he repeats, “Parachute.”

“Lovett, have you tried the linen sheets yet?” Jon asks. His heart is dancing an Irish gig up his throat and he glances down at the very premeditated, faux-casual script they’ve written up. “I was unsure at linen at first, you know? But as you continue to wash them, they get softer and softer and softer.”

“Oh, they get softer Jon?” Lovett asks. “Would you like to say that once more time? What happens the more you sleep on Parachute sheets?”

“ _They_ ,” Jon emphasizes, “get softer. Any other problems are, well, yours.” 

“It’s not fair to lay that at Parachute’s feet,” Tommy adds.

“True, true,” Lovett agrees.

“Anyway,” Jon continues, “Parachute Home dot com. We love Parachute.”

“We do,” Tommy agrees. “Parachute even offers a 60 day trial, so if you don’t love it, you can return it, no questions asked.”

Jon looks at his script, waiting a beat too long before, “not that anyone would ever want to return them.”

“Don’t be so quick,” Lovett jumps in, like this wasn’t rehearsed. He leans across the table, his hips resting on his bent ankle. “You and Dan are about to have a baby and babies make all kinds of gross, disgusting liquids. You may be returning more sheets than you think.”

“If Dan and Jon want their baby to throw up on the best sheets,” Tommy agrees, “then they should choose Parachute.”

“If they want to game the system,” Lovett nods, “for sure, Parachute is their choice.”

“Parachute Home dot com slash Pod Save.” Jon’s voice is a little rough, but he has a voice at all, and Jon’s calling that a win. “For free shipping and returns. That’s Parachute Home-”

“Wait, Jon, can I just-” Lovett interrupts and, this time, he’s off script. “I just want to read some of these Tweets.”

Tommy’s eyes sparkle as he leans his elbows on the table and spreads his legs in front of him. “Are these some of the mystery parentage tweets?”

“Yeah,” Lovett smiles. “This one is from @mark74538 - I see Mark wasn’t very creative -”

“Not at all.”

“Mark 74538 asks ‘has @jonfavs been bodyswapped?’ as in, like, a full on Freaky Friday situation. Do you think Jon’s the Jamie Lee Curtis or Lindsay Lohan in this situation?”

Tommy tilts his head to look at Jon. “I don’t know. The Jamie Lee Curtis?”

“I don’t know.” Lovett tilts his head at the same angle, squinting his eyes. “I think he’s the Lindsay Lohan. He has her cheekbones.”

“Fuck you,” Jon says, his eyes a little wet as he tries to hold back the hysterical laughter.

“Anyways,” Lovett continues. “Oh, this is one of my favorites. @JessetheWanderer was running an illegal betting ring. You know who had the highest odds?”

“I’ve seen this one,” Tommy admits. “Rachel Maddow.”

“That would have been something.” Lovett raises his eyebrow. “Tucker Carlson, on the other hand-”

“8:3 odds are pretty damn high,” Tommy agrees. “Too high, really.”

“Bullet, dodged.” Lovett smiles, soft and real. “Dan’s a better option than Tucker Carlson.”

“Chris Wallace, Ezra Klein, Stephen Colbert,” Tommy recites. “I like these guys, but none of them hold a candle to Dan.”

Jon loses the battle and he bends over, resting his head on the edge of the table as the hysteria bubbles over. His back shakes in a combination of tears and laughter.

Lovett reaches over to rub his shoulder, gingerly. “He has my endorsement. Crooked Media endorses Dan.”

“And if you need new sheets-” Tommy picks up where the script was supposed to end.

“-because you’re about to have a baby who’s going to spit up on them, ala Jon and Dan-”

“- then you should go to Parachute Home dot com and enter the code Pod Save for free shipping and returns. That’s Parachute Home dot com,” Tommy finishes.

Jon slides his headphones to his neck. “I hate you both.” His cheeks feel red and his eyes are wet and scratchy. 

“Sure,” Lovett agrees. “Why don’t you buy us tacos to show us just how much?”

“Del taco?” Tommy suggests.

Lovett nods. “Celebration food.”

Jon drops his head back to the table.

***

Jon pushes up the sleeves of his sweatshirt - an XXXL FotP sweatshirt he’d snagged specifically for the tour - for the third time since they left the air conditioned Madison Airport to stand on the curb and wait for-

Jon’s honestly not sure what they’re waiting for, but it has something to do with Lovett swearing at the Lyft app on his phone. “Three point two stars? What have I ever done to deserve that? I’m a model passenger.”

“Anyone who has to say they’re a model passenger is no such thing,” Dan deadpans.

Jon’s phone buzzes and he looks down to see a Twitter alert. He flinches, automatically. In the weeks since Lovett purposefully outed them in the Parachute ad, his singular mentions have subsided while his and Dan’s duel mentions have skyrocketed. It’s bad for Dan, who has been dragged under the swells of the Twitter riptide with him, and it’s bad for Jon, who has to spend his days reading about a relationship that doesn’t exist.

Jon spreads his fingers across his stomach, feeling the humidity pool with his anxiety in the small of his back. “Can we get off this curb before someone gets a few good photos?”

Lovett raises an eyebrow without looking up from his Lyft app. “That ship sailed months ago, I think.”

“Yeah, but,” Jon sighs, squinting into the sun and shielding his eyes over his sunglasses, “no need to throw it in people’s faces.”

Jon doesn’t miss the way Dan flinches.

“This one’s ours.” Tommy steps around them, waving his phone and opening the trunk of the van for their luggage.

“I’m stealing your Lyft username,” Lovett grumbles, as he leaves his suitcase next to Tommy and climbs into the minivan. 

Tommy sighs but reaches for Jon and Dan’s, too, and piles all four suitcases precariously into the trunk. 

Jon nods a thank you and piles in after Lovett. The driver eyes them critically, his gaze wandering over Jon for a few, stagnant moments. Jon feels Dan’s fingers twitch between them on the bench.

The driver finally looks back to the road. “The Hilton on Johnson?”

“Yeah,” Tommy nods. “We heard it’s the nicest in town.”

The driver snorts, but he pulls away from the curb.

Jon leans back in his seat and watches Madison roll by. The last time he was here, POTUS was newly elected. Jon’s hair was shorn, he was carrying around a three-pound Dell laptop in the pretentious leather briefcase his father had given him after the Illinois primary, and his greatest worry was whether or not he’d be carded at the hotel bar. He remembers, though, catching Dan’s eyes across the crowded ballroom. He remembers how Dan had looked, then, his hair dark and thick, a bit of campaign weight around his waist, his eyes sparkling blue under many less wrinkles. He remembers how Dan had smiled, encouragement and approval of POTUS’ speech on youth turnout. Jon remembers how his heart had thudded against his chest, how he had smiled back, much too shy and much too intense, how his eyes had lingered, much longer than they should have.

“We were pretty young, last time we were here,” Dan says, quietly, pulling Jon’s eyes back into the car. Dan’s hand burns with possibility between them.

“No less stupid, though,” Lovett quips from the last row of seats. His knees are pressing against the back of Jon’s chair, right where he knows Jon gets sore, now. 

Jon leans back. “That’s for sure.”

Dan catches Jon’s eyes. He doesn’t move his hand from the space between them.

“Some things don’t change so much,” Dan says.

Jon smiles, just as shy and just as intense as he did almost a decade ago. His heart thuds, just as hard, against his ribcage.

Some things don’t change at all.

***

“Just a few more questions,” Tanya says from where she stands in the aisle. She hands the microphone to the next person in line. 

A young literature grad student - “I hope you have a backup plan for after Trump abolishes all liberal arts colleges” Lovett quips - asks a 2020 question that they dodge and a 2018 demographic turnout question that they do not. Then a pre-med student asks a question about climate change that - after Lovett gives him a twenty minutes answer that meanders through the Paris Climate accord, detours into 1950s white flight, takes a hairpin turn into the Flint water crisis, and eventually lands on Democratic messaging around the environment - she probably regrets asking.

Jon arches his back, pressing his fingers against the sore spots. The lights on stage are hot and he’d been stupid enough to wear the FotP sweatshirt again, even though July in Wisconsin is muggy, even under the blasting theatre air conditioning.

“Thank you,” Tanya says, taking the mic and handing it to the next person in line. “Last question.”

The crowd groans, but the last person steps forward. She’s young, with a Badgers sweater tight across her hips and a tight, blonde braid pinned across her head. “This one’s for Jon,” she says, her voice shaking a little. 

Jon straightens, pulling his hands away from his lower back.

She twists her fingers around her mic. “You came out as a, ahh, a carrier,” she trips over the word, “a few weeks ago.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dan lean forward. Tommy’s foot stops shaking where his ankle is crossed over his knee. Lovett leans forward, his elbows digging into his knees and his face already twisting.

Jon pushes the sleeves of his sweatshirt past his elbows. He nods, as encouragingly as he can as his stomach drops into his thighs.

“I, ahh, had a question about, ahh-” She stops, fiddles with her necklace. It flashes off the lights in the theater. “I’m a Christian and a Democratic. And I struggle with- It took you a long time to come out and I- my relatives think being a carrier is an abomination and I-” she swallows. She twists her necklace again, glances sideways, and finishes, “How should Democrats talk to Christian voters about things like abortion and carrier rights and-?” She trails off.

Jon’s heart is thudding. There’s sweat pooling in the backs of his knees and the crooks of his elbows and in the folds of his belly-button.

“Samantha, was it?” Tommy asks. He doesn’t lean forward.

She nods.

“I think that’s a fair question,” Tommy sighs. “The Democratic Party has struggled with how to talk about these things for a long time.”

“I was writing pro-civil union and anti-gay marriage speeches for a decade before I realized we-” Lovett gives his best, full-cheeked smile. Jon can see how paper thin it is at the edges. “I’m gay, in case you didn’t know.”

The crowd laughs.

“Anyway, I was writing those speeches for Hillary Clinton and President Obama for _years_ , before I realized that civil unions weren’t the best we could ask for. That we could - and should - ask for more. That we should ask for everything. And that, as a community, we should demand that the Democratic Party should ask for everything if they want our vote.”

“That goes for everything we care about,” Tommy adds. “DACA recipients. Gay people. Refugees. Carriers. Women. We should demand the same set of inalienable rights for everyone, and that includes an equal day’s pay for an equal amount of work, that includes healthcare, and that includes a good education.”

“If anyone demands any less,” Dan says, his voice as steady as steel and about as malleable, “then they don’t belong in the Party.”

“Dan,” Lovett warns, softly.

“It’s as simple as that,” Dan finishes.

Samantha nods, stepping back from the mic.

Jon swallows. The lights are hot and he feels lightheaded and he glances down at his last cue card. “If that’s the last question-” He looks up again to see Tanya nod, frantically, from the aisle. His head spins even faster. “We want to thank you, Madison for coming out. That’s our show.”

He feels Lovett’s fingers on his elbow and he follows that light touch off the stage. Samantha’s soft, questioning eyes fill his mind and he swallows as he closes his own eyes and tips back an entire bottle of water backstage.

“Hey,” Tommy says, softly. “You okay? ‘Cause we can do this Meet and Greet without you. No one will blame you-”

“No.” Jon drops his water bottle into the recycling bin. “I’m fine. It was a fine question. I froze, but I’m good.”

“Well I’m fucking not,” Dan says. His eyes flash with the same, slate-grey steel Jon heard in his voice on stage.

“Then you can stay backstage,” Jon says, shrugging easily as he grabs a second water bottle and pushes past Tanya. He can hear Tommy say Dan’s name, gentle and insistent, but he can’t make out the words and he doesn’t try to.

Instead, he squares his shoulders and takes his place in front of the photo curtain. There’s already a line of people waiting, buzzing with energy, their phones in their hands and dressed in FotP and Straight Shooter and Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself t-shirts.

Jon resists every instinct in him to spread his hand over the bump under his sweatshirt.

He pushes at his sleeves, instead.

Lovett gives him a half smile as he finally comes out, trailed by Tommy and Dan. “Let’s get this party started,” Lovett says, loud enough for the crowd to hear. There’s a cheer and then Tanya’s pulling back the rope and Elijah’s holding up his camera and Jon loses himself in the endless handshakes and smiles and questions.

He freezes, though, when he sees Samantha’s blond head at the front of the queue. She’s twisting her hands in front of her, her eyes turned downwards, but Jon recognizes the tilt of her shoulders and the brain in her hair. She smiles shyly as she steps forward, nodding with a ‘thank you’ to Tanya. A tall, lanky guy follows her. He’s wearing a matching Badgers shirt that pulls around his biceps and twists at his hips. His fingers are tight on her lower back.

“I’m sorry,” she says, quietly, as she steps up beside Jon for the picture. “I didn’t mean that question to come off as- well, I just, my mom said some things at Easter and I-” She shrugs. “I wasn’t sure what to say and I thought, maybe-”

Jon swallows. His body is on fire and he really wishes they’d turn down the fluorescent lighting a little. “I’m Catholic,” he tells her.

“I know.” She drops her chin as she smiles. “That’s why I thought-” She shrugs again, sadly. “How do you reconcile it?”

Jon swallows and purposefully misunderstands her question. “The Democratic Party doesn’t always get it right. We often do too little, too slow.”

“I didn’t mean-” She stops herself. “Yeah. That’s- thank you.”

“Come on,” her boyfriend says, his voice twisting. “You’re not going to get any useful answers here. Damn politicians, always playing games. He’s probably not even pregnant.”

Jon doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s over.

He doesn’t see the way the boyfriend reaches forward.

He doesn’t feel the hand on his stomach, spread over the cotton of his sweatshirt and pressing just over his daughter’s body.

He doesn’t hear the gasp of the crowd still waiting in the queue.

He does see Dan’s face, twisting with fury. He does see the steel flashing in Dan’s eyes, glinting off the cross around Samantha’s neck. He does see Dan’s clenched fist. He does see the trajectory Dan’s fist would have taken, if Tommy hadn’t held him back.

He sees Dan’s mouth moving, but he can’t hear the expletives he throws in the boyfriend’s direction.

He sees Samantha grab the boyfriend’s elbow, watches the way her face falls, red and horrified, as she tugs him away.

He sees Lovett’s fingers on his elbow. He sees but doesn’t hear the way Lovett says his name, over and over again, over the beating of his own heart. He doesn’t feel himself being pulled away, pushed into an Uber. He barely feels Lovett’s fingers as he fishes Jon’s roomkey from Jon’s pocket.

“Jon?” Lovett says, softly, in the quiet of the hallway, before he pushes him gently inside. “What do you need? Tea? A shower? Whiskey?”

“Whiskey,” Jon deadpans, his voice sounding scratchy and distant in his ears. He looks down at his sweatshirt and imagines the handprint, right over the swell of his stomach. A stranger’s handprint. A stranger’s handprint where Dan still hasn’t touched. 

Jon reaches for the hem of his sweatshirt and pulls it quickly over his head. He throws it into a corner. He doesn’t plan on picking it up again. “A shower. I need a shower.”

Lovett nods. “I’ll draw the water.”

The water is warm. It beats, hard and steady, against the back of Jon’s neck. Jon scrubs his skin hard enough to pink and pimple.

When he gets out, Lovett’s left his softest, loosest lounge pants on the counter and Jon slides into them and a pregnancy shirt Tanya had bought him despite his every protest. She had it screen printed with the Crooked Media logo as a peace offering and Jon had frowned at her, but it’s been a relief over the past few weeks, as even his oldest, thinnest t-shirts have stopped stretching below his belly button.

Jon can hear the soft sounds of CNN through the bathroom door as he opens it, slowly. Lovett’s sitting on the farthest bed, his socked-ankles crossed and the TV illuminating his face in blues and greens. He doesn’t mute the TV when Jon comes out. He doesn’t move.

“I’m not going anywhere,” is all he says.

Jon nods. He slides into bed, pulling the comforter to his chin, and focuses on the in and out of Lovett’s steady breathing.

***

Jon’s not sure how long he’s been sleeping when he hears the door click open.

“Hey,” Lovett says, softly, as he flicks off the TV and stands. The quilts rustle as he reaches down to grab his sneakers, his feet padding across the room. His voice is low as he asks, “how much have you had to drink?”

“A glass,” Dan promises. His voice is gruff and stretched thin, but it’s steady. “You can check with Tommy.”

“I will,” Lovett promises. “He’s finally asleep, so-”

Dan drops his voice. “Yeah, okay.”

Jon waits for the door to click open and shut again before he sits up. “I’m awake.”

Dan takes a deep breath and sits on the bed across from Jon, flicking on the light between them. He rests his elbows on his knees and drops his head into his hands. “I figured.”

Jon lets the silence stretch between them as he watches fear and regret and self-recrimination chase themselves across Dan’s features.

“I’m sorry,” Dan whispers, finally.

Jon shakes his head. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I do. I can’t-” Dan takes a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. Violence-” He swallows, his forehead darkening before he looks away. “Violence isn’t a lesson I want to teach our daughter.”

“Dan-” Jon’s heart thuds against his chest. Jon can count the number of times Dan has said _our_ on one hand, has counted on the darker nights he’s spent wondering how he’s supposed to do this, alone, when he can’t stop jumping at every other Twitter shadow. “I didn’t- you- I froze.” _How can I protect her?_ he slides between the silences.

Dan reaches out, his hand stuttering and stopping halfway between them. “He _touched_ you.” His hand clenches into a fist. “He touched _her_.”

Jon shivers. He feels the phantom of the man’s hand on him and he reaches down, spreading his fingers over his stomach, over the sleep shirt.

Dan drops his eyes, following Jon’s hand. His shoulders slump. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him. I wanted-” He pulls his fist back into his lap and forces his fingers to straighten. “I still want-”

Jon’s breath catches in his throat. He can read the lines of anger in the clench of Dan’s biceps, the determination in his crow’s feet, the consummate loyalty in his eyes, so blue and clear as he peers, half lidded, at Jon’s stomach. This is the Dan Jon fell in love with, almost a decade ago. This is the Dan Jon turned to, on one of the worst days of his life so far. This the Dan who held Jon close, undressed him with shaking hands and unwavering focus, laid him out under the moonlight in a DC hotel, kissed him until Jon couldn’t think about anything but Dan’s eyes and Dan’s body and the bright, desperate gasps Jon was drawing from Dan’s lips.

This is the Dan Jon wants their daughter to know. The Dan who will demand the best from her and who will hold her when she doesn’t reach quite that high. The Dan who will listen and guide and fight for her, whoever she turns out to be. The Dan who is already doing those things, who has been since the moment he knew of her. The Dan who knows every one of Jon’s weaknesses, accepts them and meets them, fills Jon’s cavities with his own strengths.

Jon aches for the Dan he doesn’t have, even as he thanks every God he’s ever known that their daughter will get the full force of his love.

Under Jon’s hand, he feels their daughter twist in agreement. He gasps.

Dan’s face twists. “I still want to save you from the cruelty of this world,” he finishes into the silence.

“Dan-”

“You’re the most optimistic person I’ve ever known,” Dan shakes his head, smiling a little sadly. “And, against every odd, you’ve managed to keep that. It’s who you _are_. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with more than your fair share of the world’s worst actors these past few months, but, please, don’t forget that hope is _who you are_ , and-”

“Dan.” Jon interrupts, loud enough to break through his trajectory. Jon holds out his hand. “Come here.”

Dan frowns, but he shifts, rising off the bed and sitting, gingerly, at Jon’s hip.

Jon reaches for Dan’s hand, where it’s sitting on the ugly floral bedspread. He pulls Dan’s hand to his stomach. “Our daughter wants to say ‘hi.’”

Dan’s eyes widen as he feels her kick, the impossibly small ridges of her feet pressing against Jon’s skin. “Is that-?” His eyes are the bluest ice, melting as he looks at Jon, then back at their clasped hands over her feet.

Jon nods, his throat thick and his eyes as watery as Dan’s.

“I-” Dan’s palm is warm in Jon’s. He tries to clear his throat, but it’s still misty as he whispers, “that’s really her. Hey baby girl. We’re here. Your dad and I can’t wait to meet you.”

Jon laughs. It catches in his chest as she kicks again. “She knows your voice.”

Dan grins. His fingers are shaky as he strokes over Jon’s stomach, chasing the feeling of her.

“The doctor said this might happen soon,” Jon murmurs. “I’d thought, maybe, a couple times, but-” He shakes his head as he chuckles, wetly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Dan’s voice is low, like waves crashing against the shore. They break against any walls Jon has pieced together over the past few months, tearing them apart with no resistance and washing the pieces back out to sea.

Jon never stood a chance, in the face of all that.

He wraps his fingers around Dan’s wrist. “Stay?” He whispers.

Dan nods, dumbly. He toes off his shoes without ever moving from Jon’s grip and, as Jon slides over, slips onto the bed.

Jon falls asleep to the feel of Dan’s body, so warm and comforting beside him.

***

Tanya catches Jon’s eye over the crowd in Ann Arbor.

Jon feels Dan’s fingers, warm and light, on the small of his back. “You can still back out,” Dan whispers. “Everyone would understand.”

Jon shakes his head. “This is important,” he says, parroting Dan’s words back at him. “People are generally good, remember?”

Dan groans. “I knew I’d regret saying that.”

Jon laughs, “you did.” He does lean closer, though, to Dan’s fingers as he catches Tanya’s eyes and nods. “You did say it though.”

Dan nods. “I stand by it.”

Jon smiles, soft and sure. He’s felt the decision, deep in his bones, since he’d woken in Madison with Dan’s hand still spread across his stomach and the clarity he’s felt only a few times in his life. The day he’d met Senator Obama. The day he’d decided to leave the White House. The morning he’d leaned against the bumper of Lovett’s car and agreed to throw in the consulting towel and start Crooked Media. The day he’d arrived in New Hampshire, already running an hour and three speeches late, and had caught Dan’s eyes over a perfunctory handshake.

Jon’s done with hiding.

Tanya nods back, her voice too low for Jon to hear as she lets the first group through the rope line. 

The man is wearing a Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself t-shirt and he squeezes his son’s shoulder as he reaches them. He shakes Lovett’s hand, then Tommy’s, but swallows when he reaches Jon.

Jon feels Dan stiffen behind him.

Jon waits.

The man takes a deep breath and reaches out. His palm is overheated and damp. “I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Favreau, for everything you’re doing. This-” He tugs his son closer with his freehand, “is my son, Chad. He was tested in school a couple months ago and he, ahh, came back positive.”

Chad flushes red and looks away, embarrassed.

His father clears his throat. His words are shaky. “We didn’t know how to- It seemed- We were so worried. But then Chad found your podcast and-”

Jon’s heart beats faster. He coughs back the thickness in his own throat.

“I just wanted to thank you for using your platform so bravely.” The man finally releases Jon’s hand and squeezes Chad’s shoulder. “You’ve given our family hope again.”

Jon blinks desperately.

The man smiles a little wetly and nods. He steps next to Dan, pulling his son with him for the picture. Jon makes a mental note to ask Elijah for a copy.

“Well,” the father chuckles, “we should let you get to other fans. You’ve got quite a line waiting.”

He pulls Chad with him, but Chad pauses, looking at Jon as he passes. He whispers, “thank you,” and then ducks his head, falling into his father’s side.

Jon closes his eyes for a moment, slowing his heartbeat to the rhythm of Dan’s breathes beside him.

He opens them again, grinning broadly. “‘Who’s next?”


	4. Chapter 4

Delaware isn’t as humid as the midwest, but Jon’s still sweating through his t-shirt by the time Dan pulls up in front of his parents’ house. He pauses, his hand on the driving stick, twitching towards Jon’s thigh but not quite reaching out.

Dan takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to do this.”

Jon chuckles. “We planned this,” because they did. Once Dan had put his foot down about flying during Jon’s third trimester, they’d agreed collectively to tack this trip onto the end of their last tour. So while Tommy and Lovett flew back to LA, to dry heat and their dogs, Jon had boarded a plane to Delaware. He reaches for the door handle. “Besides, she should meet her grandparents.”

Dan’s face goes slack in profile.

Jon finishes opening his door and steps out onto the blistering pavement. He arches his back, feeling his sore muscles stretch and pull. Up the path, the front door cracks open and Dan’s mother comes rushing out.

There’s a dish towel in her hands and a smile on her face. Jon steps back so she can reach Dan, but she steps with him, throwing her arms around his neck. She arches her hips around his stomach, not a single line of tension in her as she presses closer than anyone’s let themselves in months.

“Welcome to Wilmington,” she grins, sliding just far enough away to look at him, her arm still slung around his shoulders. “It’s not much to look at, but now that you’re here-” she winks at him. “I made cookies. Come on.”

“I just need to-” Jon looks back to see Dan popping the trunk.

“Nonsense.” She glances behind them, smirking at her son. “You’ve been carrying this baby around for six months now, he can carry a couple of suitcases.”

Dan raises an eyebrow at her as he lifts both their bags from the car. “You _made_ cookies?”

“Yes,” she says, indignantly, then dips her chin to whisper to Jon. “From one of those Toll House rolls. All you gotta do is cut and throw them into the oven. I’ll show you how. I craved sugar through my entire pregnancy with Dan. I like to say that’s why he’s so sour about sugar now.”

Jon laughs, losing his footing around the crater rim of normalcy. “He does have an anti-sugar vendetta.”

She shakes her head and pinches his arm. “Is that why you’re so skinny?”

Jon glances down at his belly, stretching his thin t-shirt.

“Men,” she scoffs, “always carry babies in their hips. Women have to carry them everywhere.”

Jon blinks at her. When people talk about carriers, they speak slowly, like they’re watching their footing over slippery rocks, their feet awash with river water. Lear, though, sweeps past it. Like she doesn’t have to be careful to say the right thing. Like she doesn’t have to translate her feelings into careful, poll-tested, acceptably progressive beliefs. 

She pulls him towards the house, her fingers solid around his shoulders. “Don’t pretend I’m not right.”

“No, ma’am,” Jon laughs, “I’m not stupid enough to argue with you.”

“Lear, please.” She squeezes the sorest muscle in his neck. “You’re family now.”

Jon opens his mouth to protest. He’s not sure what Dan’s told her and he hasn’t asked, but she deserves to know that their familial duties begin and end at parenting her granddaughter.

She shakes her head, her smile softening. “You’re family,” she repeats, and turns him towards the house.

*** 

Dan’s not quite a Wilmington celebrity. Delaware was just a high school rest stop between Brazil and DC, and Dan had spent half of those years wanting to get out and the other half with the same single-minded focus on basketball that he now spends on the Sixers, politics, and, if Jon plays every one of his cards just right, their daughter.

Still, they catch looks as Dan leads him on a tour of Wilmington's most actively historic spots - “by which I mean the old houses my mom will ask you about at dinner tonight” - and the most historic spots of Dan’s teenage years. The convention center where he’d skipped out on prom to smoke on the fire escape with his teammates. The riverfront where Dan had endured his first kiss, a toothy, wet, short-lived rendez-vous with a red haired, enthusiastic girl on his rival debate team. The rock he’d made his own the night his ACL had finally given out and he’d had to give in to the inevitably of his disappointing height and his weak tendons. The rock he’d sat on as he determined to find a new dream that he loved just as much and was, perhaps, just a bit better at.

“I never quite found it,” Dan shrugs, sliding his hands into the pockets of his shorts and looking out over the Delaware river. “Or, I hadn’t, before-” He trails off as his eyes dart towards the hand Jon’s resting on his stomach.

Jon swallows. “You’re a lot better at politics than you are at basketball.”

“Ouch.” Dan clutches his chest, wounded.

Jon shrugs. “I’ve seen you play. POTUS beats you every time.” Jon laughs a little as he remembers late nights blowing off steam on the campaign trail, on never-ending foreign trips, on late nights at the Residence. “ _Axe_ beats you every time, and that’s much more embarrassing.”

“Okay, okay.” Dan holds his hands up in surrender. “This is enough ego bashing before I have to talk to teenagers in my old high school gymnasium.” Dan shivers. “This is the kind of speaking engagement nightmares are made of.”

Jon reaches up, holding Dan’s elbow for balance as Dan steps down from the rock. “You’re going to awe them with your endlessly embarrassing knowledge of Sixers basketball before you hit them with the hard stuff.”

Dan snorts. “What every high schooler wants to hear from a middle-aged political operative.” He doesn’t pull his arm away as they step onto the sidewalk back towards Wilmington Friends High School. He nods at Jon’s hand, still spread over the spot the baby hasn’t stopped kicking, now that she’s discovered how to kick. “I hope she gets your athletic prowess.”

Jon turns his head away. Being in Delaware, sleeping in Dan’s childhood bedroom, arguing politics with Dan’s parents and being out-progressed by them- Something about all of it has shifted something between them, easing the careful way Dan’s been choosing his words for months now and building cracks in the wall that Jon had erected between them the morning he woke, sticky and sore and so hopeful, to find Dan sneaking out of his DC hotel room.

Jon still doesn’t say the first thought that crosses his mind - _I’ll gladly give her any small athletic talent I had if she gets your loyalty and your devotion and your single-minded determination to do right and be right_ \- but he does say the second, sarcastically, “my track team letter jacket was definitely cooler than my Model UN t-shirt.” 

Dan shakes his head. “She’s doomed.”

“Probably. But, aren’t we all?”

“Sins of our parents and all that?” Dan tilts his head.

“I don’t know.” Jon lets go of his elbow as they reach the front entrance and climb the stairs. “Your parents are pretty great.”

Dan misses the top step and catches himself on the railing. He’s wearing khaki shorts and a FoTP t-shirt, the sweat obvious on the small of his back. It hugs his hips and Jon’s mouth goes a little dry as he takes the last couple steps and gives into the instinct to trail his fingers over Dan’s back. 

“Come on,” Jon grins, “you have a gym full of teenagers to turn into voters.”

***

“Dan was never one for frivolities.” Lear jokes as she points to a picture of Dan. He can’t be more than seven or eight, his knees knobby and scraped under the ceremonial kimono he’s wearing. Jon can see Senso-Ji temple in the background. “But at least he went outside, sometimes. We could never get Bob’s nose out of a book.”

Dan groans from the doorway. He has two pots of coffee in his hands and he refills his parents’ mugs with the first before handing Jon the second. “Decaf,” he says, ignoring the way Jon’s nose crinkles in favor of sitting on the couch arm next to him. “She’s pulled out the baby pictures.”

“So far,” Jon says, his eyes twinkling as he rests against Dan’s knee, “Bob’s coming off a lot worse than you are.”

“It’s all lies then,” Dan promises. He looks over Jon’s shoulder, his arm brushing Jon’s as he points to a picture of him and Bob outside a radio station in Japan. “My first foray into public political speaking. Imitating Michael Dukakis in the 1988 debates.”

Jon grins fondly down at the polaroid. Dan’s dressed in his school uniform and a blue tie. His left sock is rolling down his ankle. 

“It never really went up from there,” Dan jokes.

“You did great today,” Jon corrects him. “That auditorium was enraptured.”

Dan snorts. “Were we in the same auditorium? Those kids were bored as hell.”

“Dan,” Lear chastises.

“You should swear less now, both of you,” Gary eyes both of them. “Or the baby’s first word is going to be- what is the term you like so much?”

“Shitburger?” Dan offers.

Gary groans. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Jon shivers a little at the easy assumption that Dan will be around often and long enough that her first worlds will be his. He ignores Dan’s frown, though, and grins at Dan’s dad. “We’re trying. Not so successfully.”

“Surprisingly, Lovett’s been the best,” Dan muses. He slides his socked foot under Jon’s thigh. “We’re a work in progress.”

“More lofty ambitions, less actual progress,” Jon admits. 

Lear chuckles, “lost cause,” at her husband as she pulls out an even older album. She opens it in Jon’s lap. “It’s never been worth telling Dan what to do.”

Jon’s eyes soften as he looks down at her finger. In the picture, she’s much younger, her hair the same dark shade of brown Dan’s is under his grey, and there’s a baby on her knees. He can’t be more than three months old, but he’s standing, pulling against her hands. “You had so much hair,” Jon marvels.

“A whole head,” Lear laughs. “And a whole heart of independence.”

Dan rolls his eyes. “Mom.”

“He needs to know,” she shrugs. “He should know what you’re getting into.”

She says _you_ so easily and Jon’s chest tightens. “Was Bob the same?”

Lear laughs and flips to a full page of Bob photos. He’s smaller, with a lot less hair, and in almost every photo his eyes are trained on Dan. Lear looks past Jon at Dan. “He worshiped you.”

For a moment, Jon’s mind flashes to a world his dreams haven’t even dared to imagine. An unbroken future where their daughter gets the same, idyllic life both her parents had. Where he and Dan haven’t disadvantaged her with their mistakes before she’s even born. Where she gets to have a younger sibling to terrorize and worship her, like Bob and Andy have them. 

Dan laughs, a little forced, his toes flexing under Jon’s thigh. “How the tables turn.”

Jon laughs and tugs his dreams back into place.

***

They arrive at LAX with the first rain in three months and a suitcase full of Lear’s cookies and a copy of Dan’s baby album. Jon clutches at Dan’s hand as they bump and swoop their way onto the tarmac.

Dan doesn’t pull away and, when they touch down to sarcastic cheers, he promises, “last flight for the next few months.”

“Last flight for forever, if I have my choice,” Jon mutters. He’s been reading articles about new parents’ increased phobias. Jon hadn’t thought it possible, really, to hate flying any more than he already does, but his stomach is in his knees and the baby is tapping an anxious rhythm against his bladder and Jon is starting to understand the heightened sense of danger.

Dan squeezes his hand and then stands, pulling their carry-ons from the overhead compartment. Jon doesn’t even try to reach for his as he pulls himself with great effort from the seat he’s melted into over the past six hours.

It’s late, just past midnight, and Jon tips a little as they wait at baggage claim. At least it’s a cooler, dryer heat, even if the air quality tickles his lungs as Jon breathes in deeply. Dan holds him steady, his arm loose around Jon’s back, until their luggage arrives.

Jon calls them a Lyft and grabs his carry-on but leaves Dan to struggle with the rest of their bags. Their car’s idling at the curb, waiting for them, and Dan piles their luggage into the back before sliding in next to Jon, his knee resting idly against Jon’s. Jon drifts off as they pull onto the highway.

The drive is quick this late at night and Jon wakes to Dan’s hand on his knee. “We’re home,” Dan smiles softly.

Jon’s heart leaps.

In the front seat, their driver rolls his eyes, mutters, “WeHo,” and drives off the moment their luggage is out of the trunk.

Dan sighs, reaching for their bags, but Jon’s already at the front door. Leo’s yipping on the other side - Lovett had dropped him off after his late night walk - and he jumps nearly to Jon’s hips as he pushes the door open. “Hey, buddy, happy to see us?”

Leo twists between his legs, rubbing against his ankles, and Jon almost trips over him as he turns on the lights and drops onto the living room couch. Leo jumps up after him, his tail wagging desperately and his head butting against Jon’s stomach. Jon grabs his face, pulling him in for kisses. He smells like Lovett’s, like Pundit and the dog shampoo Lovett uses and Dorito cheese, and Jon breathes him in.

“Missed you too,” Jon rubs his hands over Leo’s sides. “I’m here for the duration, okay?”

Leo whuffles and only looks up when Dan returns from the bedroom. He’s leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed and deep, dark circles under his eyes. It’s late, later than Jon’s seen him in too long, and his shoulders are soft and droopy.

“It’s late,” Jon says, keeping his voice low, “and we have to be at the office early tomorrow. Why don’t you stay in the guest room?”

Dan pushes off the wall. “It’s not that far to my apartment,” he argues, but his voice is as soft as Jon’s.

Leo twists next to Jon, then hops off the couch and stretches his paws onto Dan’s thigh.

Dan huffs a laugh, petting between his ears. “Yeah, okay, I’ll stay.”

***

“Fuck, shit, ow, fuck.”

Leo races out of the nursery, his collar jingling and his tail fluffed between his legs. Jon raises an eyebrow at him and heads down the hallway, leaning in the doorway the best he can with over seven months of weight on him. “How are things going in here?”

“Just great.” Dan grits his teeth around a mouthful of nails. The crib is still in pieces of oak around him, instructions spread across the room, wrinkled and out of order, where Leo had slipped on his race out. “Our baby’s going to be sleeping in a drawer at this rate.”

Jon shrugs. “It worked for generations and people turned out okay.”

“People,” Dan grumbles as he spits out the nails onto the carpet, “had an infant mortality rate of 60%.”

“I don’t think that had to do with the drawers,” Jon argues. He looks at the mess around them and then down at Leo, who’s cowering at his feet, just beyond the threshold. “I think we should reconsider that friend of Elijah’s. He said he’d put it together for like fifty bucks. Your sanity and Leo’s life are worth that.”

Dan sighs and leans back. “I just-” His fingers are red and swollen from, Jon assumes, hitting them more often than the nails. “I wanted to do this.”

“You’ve done plenty.” Jon motions around the room. 

It’s newly painted a subtle, sea green, with grey stenciled elephants around the upper border. There’s a mobile hanging from the ceiling - Lovett’s contribution, after weeks of intensive research into infantile education and fine motor skills - above where the crib will eventually go. Behind Dan, there’s a rocking chair - Tommy’s contribution, shipped from his grandmother’s in Boston - already piled high with more stuffed animals than any baby ever needs. 

“Besides,” Jon glances at his watch. “we have a founders’ meeting in twenty and Tommy made me promise that we wouldn't be late. Again.”

“Fuck.” Dan shoves the tools disorderly back into a box so Leo can't get to them, and stands. “I just need to- shower.”

He touches Jon's side and pets Leo as he goes, whispering, “sorry, buddy,” when Leo cowers back. Leo tilts his head, then licks Dan's fingers and follows him into the guest room that Dan moved into the night they returned from Delaware and never moved out of.

His hair is dripping wet when he comes out again ten minutes later, but he's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. He's pulling his sweatshirt on as he calls for Leo to follow, also a little wetter than he was before the shower.

Jon laughs at them and tosses Dan the car keys.

Jon's slow getting out to the driveway and they're still ten minutes late by the time they pull up to their strip mall. Jon slacks Tanya an apology as Dan lends his hand and helps Jon out of the car. Leo runs ahead of them, his tail wagging. He yips excitedly at the door and Jon frowns at him, “what's up buddy?,” as he pushes open the door-

And stops so fast that Dan has to catch himself with a hand on Jon's hip.

That's the photo Elijah gets, of Jon's slacked, surprised face, Dan's worried forehead, his fingers spread across Jon's side and still swollen and bruised from the hammer.

“Welcome to your surprise baby shower,” Tanya grins at them.

“We already opened the champagne,” Tommy hands them two glasses of sparkling cider. “I warned you not to be late.”

“Close your mouth before the flies get in,” Alyssa warns, wrapping her arms tightly around Dan's neck. “Which is a real possibility because your office is a cesspool. Hey, buddy.”

“We know,” Dan laughs, handing his cider glass to Andy so he can wrap her in a real hug. “We’re working on it. Did you fly all the way out here?”

“For my goddaughter?” She grins. “Of course I did.”

“We haven’t decided anything,” Dan warns her.

She hums and lets him go, reaching for Jon. “Let me see you. You’re beautiful.”

Jon flushes, but lets her hug him close, his belly snug against her side. “You’re biased. I haven’t slept in a week.”

She laughs. “I hear that’s good preparation for the first year of parenting.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Lear says as she pusses past Alyssa and pulls Jon into a similarly full-bodied embrace. “It’s at least a couple years before you’ll be getting a full night’s sleep again.”

Dan looks from Alyssa to his mother and swallows. His hand shakes a little on Jon's back. “You-?” He stops, starts again. “How long have you been planning this?”

Alyssa shrugs, reaching out to squeeze his elbow. “Lovett put Tanya and I on a group chat a couple months ago. We were delegated jobs.”

“Mine was to be here,” Lear laughs.

“Mine was to provide champagne, so, drink up.”

Jon takes his glass obediently and lets Andy pull him further into the room. It's decorated in light shades of teal and pink and yellow - “I wanted to give her all the options” Lovett shrugs from the snack table - with a giant, sparkling “Baby of the Pod” sign hanging on the far wall. The snack table is piled high with pretzels and cookies and champagne bottles and a cake that, as Jon gets close enough to see, also reads “#1 Baby of the Pod.”

Tanya and Lovett have recreated their entire line of merch with the same line. Jon holds back his tears, though, until Tommy hands them matching boxes. They’re messily wrapped, like Tommy did it himself, with July 4th wrapping paper - “I found it at Target” Tommy shrugs, like he hadn’t dragged Elijah to five stores at lunch the week before to find the perfect paper - and Dan’s hand tightens on Jon’s shoulder as they both pull out “Dad of the Pod” sweatshirts.

Dan makes a small, choked noise and Tommy switches out his grape substitute for real champagne.

“Drink it,” Jon laughs, when Dan frowns at it, because at least one of them should be drinking alcohol. “For me,” Jon adds, because he thinks, maybe, that if he could have just one glass, just enough to numb his senses and blur his eyes the slightest bit, this entire scene would slide from _almost_ everything he’s always wanted to everything he’s always wanted.

Because between these walls, with the windows looking out over the strip club and the Starbucks down the precariously trash-riddled sidewalk, surrounded by this group of coworkers both new and old that they’ve hand-cultivated, Jon can forget there’s a world of Twitter discourse and tabloid commentary beyond them.

Because surrounded by his most important people - with Lovett’s laughter, his entire body bent over his champagne flute, at Elijah’s expensive; with Tommy’s face turning red as he argues heatedly with Hanna and Andy and Molly about the merits of crossing the 405 for Munchkins; with his mother’s head bent close to Lear’s, scheming, and his dad holding his hand out to Gary to consummate their Celtics vs. Sixers bet - it’s hard to keep reminding himself that, in a few short weeks, Jon will be doing this alone.

Because Dan- Because Dan’s hand is still warm and steady on his shoulder. Because Dan is already wearing his Dad of the Pod sweatshirt, pulled casually over his hips like it means nothing to put it on. Because Jon keeps catching Dan _looking_ at him. Because Jon used to catch Dan looking at him, back when all that stretched between them was possibility. Because Jon’s belly now fills that space where possibility used to be.

Jon has to keep reminding himself that, as real-adjacent as this feels, it isn’t quite real.

“Hey.” Dan squeezes his shoulder, his eyes shining as Jon meets them. His cheeks are flushed from the champagne, his eyes even bluer than usual from the tears. If Jon let himself, he could fall into them, again and again and again. “You okay?”

Jon swallows. “Yeah, just,” Jon motions to the room and carefully does not include Dan in his sweep, “overwhelming, you know?”

“Yeah.” Dan smiles, soft and embarrassed. “Yeah, it is.”

Because Jon is still so in love and, if he lets himself, it would be so easy to pretend that Dan is, too.

***

_**Blind Item: Click Here  
Pod Save America Co-Hosts Secretly Married?!** _

_When they’re not rallying Democratic congresspeople and setting Party agenda, Pod Save America is hocking expensive sheet sets and lazy at-home meal kits. While some critics have called them tone-deaf and out-of-touch with the majority of the country that lives between New York and Los Angeles, others have celebrated their mostly liberal beliefs._

_Just a few months ago - and a few months too late - former White House speechwriter Jonathan Favreau came out as a carrier after he was caught brunching at Venice’s Rose Cafe. “My private life is my private life,” Favreau said at a live show in Ann Arbor, Michigan, weeks after after the incident, “but if there’s anything I can do to ease the way for young people out there, struggling with this identity, then I’m going to do it.” A nice sentiment._

_Now, TMZ online has the latest scoop on Favreau’s secrets. An anonymous source has tipped us off to a marriage license between Favreau and his co-host and baby daddy, former Senior Advisor to President Obama Howard Daniel Pfeiffer._

_Pod Save America may be the self-appointed ‘Voice of the Left,’ but has its co-hosts gone too far this time? Sound off below._

“It's bullshit,” Dan calls from the kitchen, where he's unpacking their groceries. “Their anonymous source is a paid hack with a bubble gum pen.”

“Sure,” Jon agrees. He knows Dan is right. TMZ is a bullshit organization with no journalistic ethics and no pretenses towards them. Still, though-

He uses the couch arm to leverage himself up. The eighth month corner is in his rear view mirror and it took the last of his balance with it. He manages, though, and settles onto a stool at the kitchen island.

“They're assholes, but,” Jon continues, “this is how a lot of America thinks.”

“A lot of America are assholes,” Dan says, easily. His voice echoes in the cabinets where he's rearranging cereal boxes to make room.

“Right.” Jon rubs his forehead. “That's my point. So many people feel this way and we're- I'm not going to be able to protect her from them forever.”

Dan's back tenses, the muscles rippling under his henley. Jon's heart pounds.

“All I'm saying,” Jon tries to correct, quickly, “is that she's going to deal with so much bullshit and if I'm feeling this way after an obviously ridiculous TMZ headline, how's she going to handle hearing it from her teachers and her friends and their parents?”

“She's going to know they're wrong,” Dan says. Jon can't tell if his voice is as dangerously ridged as it sounds or if it's magnified by the echo. “Because we're going to tell her, every day.”

“Yeah.” Jon sighs. “Just- I wish she didn't have _every_ disadvantage.”

Dan steps back from the cupboard. He's holding a box of Cocoa Puffs Lovett had left months ago and a busted packet of powdered milk that Jon's been meaning to clean up for just as long. “Do you-?” Dan swallows, his voice tightly controlled. “We could, you know. Legitimize it.”

Jon lifts his hips so he can reach across the counter and into the bag of unpacked groceries. “What?”

Dan throws the Cocoa Puffs in the garbage and grabs the grapes. He washes them quickly and hands them over. “We could get married. Take away one of her,” his face twists, “disadvantages.”

Jon drops the grape he's holding and it bounces to the floor. Leo scrambles, his nails scratching across the kitchen tile. “Dan.”

“It doesn't have to mean anything,” Dan shrugs, not looking at him.

Jon stares at his shoulder - the seam is fraying a little and Dan really needs to toss this shirt - as his fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

Dan continues, “it would be for her.”

“Yeah,” Jon hears himself say. His voice doesn't sounds like his. His hands are shaking. Leo whines at his feet. “No, I mean, it's fine. You don't have to- Don't be ridiculous.”

Dan shrugs, his shoulders tight. “I don't think it's so ridiculous.”

“Of course you don't,” Jon snaps. Leo whines again and his daughter responds, waking up and twisting to dance her tiny fists across Jon's stomach. Jon spreads his hand over the spot, protectively. “But this isn't a joke to me. She's mine, for the rest of my life.”

Dan's knuckles whiten against the counter. “She's mine, too.”

“I know.” Jon shrugs. “But it's different. I can't- you can leave, whenever you want. I don't have that luxury.”

“ _Luxury_ ,” Dan repeats, his voice slipping over the edge.

“Yes.” Jon slides right over the edge after him. “Yes, Dan. You have freedoms here that I don't.”

“Plenty of birth parents leave their children,” Dan's eyes flash, ice and fire warring in his irises. “If you're implying that my commitment has been as fragile-”

“I'm not implying anything,” Jon interrupts as the flood of images he's been holding back for months - Dan, introducing Jon to someone new; Dan, missing a Saturday t-ball game, then a ballet recital, then a Christmas Eve dinner, then another t-ball game and another and another and another and-; their daughter, looking up at Jon with Dan's eyes and so little of his affection, asking when he’s going to come around again to read her a bedtime story - crash through Jon's flimsy walls and flood every insecure crack in Jon's armor. “There's no guarantee that you'll be here. I can't- I can't rely on that, and neither can she.”

Dan reels back from the force of Jon's gale as it floods the space between them. When he speaks, his voice is low and harsh. “I have been here. Every day. I uprooted my entire life for-” he swallows, trips over his words- “for her. I have been in this, one hundred percent. I don’t know what more I can do to show you-?”

Jon shrugs. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“So, this-” Dan motions around the kitchen, to the bag of groceries he’d bought on his way home from the office, to the Sixers mug still sitting in the sink waiting to be washed, to the Dad of the Pod sweatshirt thrown carelessly over a chair. “Didn’t mean anything? To you?”

Jon closes his eyes against the images. His chest is pounding, his stomach twisting and rolling with more than just the baby’s punches.

“Well,” Dan says, slowly. “I’m glad I know, now, how little you think of me. Thank you, for telling me.”

When Jon opens his eyes, Dan’s pushing his feet into his shoes. He stops by the front door, digging through the bowl until he finds the apartment keys he dropped there weeks ago and are now shifting, somewhere, at the bottom.

He pauses at the door, just long enough to say, “I’m sorry I wasn’t enough,” and doesn’t look back.

Leo jogs after him, pausing as the door closes in his face. He lays on the threshold, whining.

Jon’s stomach flips. He spreads his hand over his belly, sliding miserably from the stool and walking uncomfortably into the living room. 

He collapses onto the couch and flips on CNN. He’s not sure how long Leo whines at the door before he slinks onto the couch next to him, looking as miserable as Jon feels.

“I know,” Jon pets Leo’s head as he closes his own eyes, “I miss him already, too.”

***

The living room is dark when Jon wakes up.

He struggles to sit up, reaching for his phone and grimacing. Every muscle is sore, his back screaming at him, his neck aching, his shoulder numb from the angle.

_11:34 PM._

Jon sighs, then freezes as a sharp pain courses through his stomach. His phone crashes to the ground and Leo jumps, crying as he sits up and looks at Jon.

The pain eases and Jon counts the seconds before it hits again.

Not long enough. Not nearly long enough.

He bends, groaning, to grab his phone from the floor. He dials before the next wave hits.

***

“She’s not ready. It’s too early, she hasn’t-” Jon says, his fingers splayed over his stomach. He’s wearing an embarrassingly thin paper gown and he can see his feet sticking out under the hem of the blanket. “We-” Jon freezes, remembering Dan’s face when he left Jon’s house and Jon’s life not even twelve hours ago. He swallows. “I’m not ready.”

“I think,” Tommy says, softly, his fingers warm against Jon’s on the bed railing, “that this is how it goes. You’re not ready until you’re ready, you know?”

“That’s the stupidest saying,” Jon gasps around a contraction. “It doesn’t even mean anything.”

Tommy chuckles, but his retort is interrupted by a flurry of commotion at the door.

“I’m sorry, sir. You can’t go in there. Family only,” the nurse says, in her gentlest no-nonsense voice. Jon’s already quite familiar with it, from the way she’s ordered him to _don’t be shy, I’m going to see everything you’ve got more than a few times tonight_ and _breathe, god, men are always the worst, breathing is nature’s epidural_ in the mere fifteen minutes since their Lyft dropped them off at the maternity ward.

“I _am_ family,” Dan says, his voice strangled. “I’m the father.”

Jon’s heart beats frantically and their daughter kicks, like she’s turning towards his voice even as she’s trying to escape. Like this labor, just on the cusp of too early, is all a ruse for her to see Dan again.

“Oh,” the nurse sounds surprised. “There’s already-”

Tommy pulls back from Jon’s bedside. “Let him in. I’m just a friend.”

She shrugs and steps aside. Dan’s wearing a grey Van on one foot and a navy blue one on the other, a pair of loose, ratty-looking gardening jeans and a Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself shirt that’s a little tight around his shoulders. He ignores Tommy’s “hey, Dan, you got my message” and skids to a stop next to Jon’s bedside.

“Dan-” Jon starts, then bends over with a contraction. 

Dan reaches for his hand, and Jon’s not sure which of them is shaking more. He breathes with Jon, counting “one-two-three, one-two-three” in the rhythm they learned in lamaze class.

Jon focuses on him, sliding his breathes in alongside Dan’s and never wanting to pull back. When the pain eases, he sits back but doesn't let go of Dan's hand. 

“You're here.” Jon whispers, his voice is ragged. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tommy slip outside with the nurse. But he can't look away from Dan's eyes, ringed with black, every one of Jon's fears and insecurities and cracks mirrored back at him.

“I'm so sorry,” Dan whispers, choked and slippery. “I’m so sorry you even had to question- I'm not giving up on you. On this. On her.” He squeezes Jon’s hand, so tight that Jon can feel the bones of his fingers. “I couldn't, even if I tried.”

“I don't want you to try,” Jon says, so quickly that he can't be sure he even says it. “I didn't mean anything I said. I was- I'm so terrified, Dan. I don't want to do this alone.” 

Jon chokes as another contraction hits. Dan holds him through it, pulling Jon forward and rubbing his back as he urges him to calm, “breathe, Jon, with me, one-two, yeah, that's perfect,” low and steady and rhythmic, “one-two-three, good, again. You're so strong, Jon, I can't believe you're doing this, for us, our baby girl is- I love her so much- yeah, Jon, keep breathing, breathe with me, please, there's no one else I'd want to do this with. One-two-three, yeah, good.”

The pain eases and Jon settles back against Dan's chest. His eyes are blurry as he plays back Dan's words, tinged with pain and adrenaline and he couldn't possibly mean- But if there's even a chance that he- Jon swallows thickly. “I don't want to do this alone, but that's not the entire truth. It's-” He squeezes Dan's hand as tightly as Dan's holding his. “It's you. I want to do this _with you_.”

“Only you,” Dan whispers. Tears are streaming down his cheeks. “It's only ever been you.”

Another contraction hits and Dan presses his lips to side of Jon's head as he whispers him through it.

“So,” the nurse says, briskly, as she walks in to read the monitor, “your daughter's getting impatient. Dad, go get changed, there's sterile clothes in the bathroom.”

“No-” Jon clutches at Dan's hand as the contraction eases but the pain doesn't. “I want him here. I need him- if something happens-”

Dan chokes. “I’m here. I'm not going anywhere.”

“While that's a lovely sentiment,” the nurse corrects, clucking her tongue like she deals with this every day, “you're going somewhere right now, or you're not allowed in the operating room.”

Dan freezes, eyes darting between Jon and the nurse, and Jon makes an embarrassing whimpering sound that he can’t regret as the next contraction hits.

Dan brushes Jon’s hair off his forehead, “breathe, baby, come on. You’re so brave, she’s going to be so brave. I can’t wait to meet her. If she’s even half the person you are- Just a little bit longer- breathe, _please_.”

“You have two minutes before the next one,” the nurse says, pointedly, as the pain stops.

Dan closes his eyes, whispers “I’m coming right back, I’m not leaving you,” then races towards the bathroom. Dan doesn’t close the door the whole way and the nurse is distracting Jon with needles and her clipboard, but it’s still the longest moments of Jon’s life.

Then Dan is racing back out, the scrubs shirt still rucked halfway up his chest and almost tripping over the pants legs he’s still adjusting. His sterilization hat is askew over his head and the nurse sighs and adjusts it for him as he reaches, again, for Jon’s hand. Jon squeezes it like a lifeline.

“Okay,” she says, toeing open the locks on Jon’s gurney. “The doctor will meet us in the OR. I’m going to start your sedative, so, say what you need to now or forever hold your peace.”

Jon hears _forever_ in his bones, and waits through his next contraction before he tugs at Dan’s hand until he lowers his head to Jon’s ear. “If anything happens to me, I need to know that you’ll-”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Dan chokes, broken and ragged.

“If it does,” Jon urges, statistics about male pregnancies and early deliveries filtering, unbidden through his filters. “If it does, Dan-”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dan repeats, like a mantra. He flattens his hand over Jon’s stomach, spreading his fingers to hold their daughter, warm and almost ready, between then. “Ever. I’ll be at your side from now until my grave. I- Jon, fuck-”

As Jon looks at Dan’s hand, at the way he blankets them both, his world starts to fade at the edges. He glares accusingly up at the nurse, but she just smiles at him - “that’s it, we’ll see you on the other side” - and then flicks his eyes to Dan.

His eyes are so, so blue.

Jon thinks, maybe, he hears Dan finish “I am so in love with you” as he’s pulled under.

***

Jon wakes slowly to the smell of beeping machines and the sound of hospital antiseptic. There’s something heavy and warm in his hand. He blinks, forcing his eyes open and the world, mostly, rights itself.

He flexes his fingers and whispers, hoarsely, “hi,” and Dan looks up from his place by Jon’s hip, his eyes wet and his smile brilliant. He’s still wearing scrubs, but they’re wrinkled and a little out of place. Dan squeezes his hand and stands, shifting the blanketed bundle in his arms.

“Hey, look who finally woke up.” Dan’s voice is wet and loose. “There’s someone here who’d like to meet her dad.”

Dan presses the button to raise the bed, just a little, then places her gently on Jon’s chest. She yawns, pulling her fists into her blanket. Her face is small and red and she wrinkles her nose as Jon’s tears fall on her cheek. “Hi Eliza,” Jon whispers. “Welcome. Your Papa and I have been waiting so long to meet you.”

Dan’s eyes are the most impossibly warm shade of blue. “She’s the most perfect baby I’ve ever seen.”

“Ten fingers?” Jon asks, as he raises his hand so she can grasp his finger without opening her eyes.

Dan laughs, wetly. “And ten toes.” He reaches out to cup her head, his hand brushing against Jon’s. His voice is desperate and broken as he asks, “can I?”

Jon frowns, a question on his tongue as he turns his head and freezes.

Dan’s face is inches from his, his eyes darting to Jon’s lips. And Jon remembers- He remembers saying a lot of things he didn’t mean to in anger. And then saying a lot of things he did mean, but never had any intention of sharing, in the throws of-

Jon swallows. “It’s not just because- We just had a baby and-” Jon looks away, back at the wrinkles in their daughter’s new forehead. “It’s okay, if you didn’t mean- you’re off the hook, okay?”

Dan shakes his head, his smile soft and endeared. “I meant every word I said. I love you, Jon. I have loved you for years. I love our daughter, but I loved you long before we made her, too.” He takes a deep breath. “But if you don’t want that, I meant everything else, too. I’m here. I will always be here. For Eliza. And for you, in whatever way you want me.”

Jon’s heart thuds. “In every way,” he whispers, lifting his chin for their second kiss. It’s soft and sweet and no more coordinated than their first was, almost nine months ago.

Dan doesn’t pull back until Eliza whines and pushes her fists against her blanket. He rests his head against Jon’s as he looks down at her. “I didn’t know I could love someone so much.”

“I knew.” Jon kisses the side of Dan’s head. “Of course I knew. She’s half yours.”

**EPILOGUE**

Jon adjusts the polkadot boy on Eliza's head as she claps joyously. Not at the six-month approved, good-for-her mental development set of blocks Lovett had carefully chosen after reading three days of reviews, but at the zoo animals wrapping paper he'd bribed Tanya to wrap it with.

“I guess it's okay if my niece is of average intelligence,” Lovett sighs, resigned, as he tears off another strip of wrapping paper and holds it out.

She pulls and the paper tears. She laughs, wiggling her toes happily.

“Or,” Lovett tilts his head, “maybe you're into physics, hmm, baby girl?”

“Stop terrorizing my goddaughter,” Alyssa frowns. She lifts Eliza into her arms. “She's got sixteen years to decide if she's going to follow her fathers’ ridiculous ambitions or find joy in jamming.”

Tommy rolls his eyes and repeats “jamming” with the same disbelief he's said it with, over and over again, since Alyssa announced she was quitting corporate life to pick up canning in a garden house in Silver Lake.

“As long as you’re willing to babysit,” Jon tells her, “feel free to teach her as many domestic apocalypse skills as you want.”

“Are there really skills to jamming?” Tommy asks, as he wiggles his fingers for Eliza and Alyssa hands her over reluctantly.

“Canning actually has a long history,” Lovett starts, winding himself up.

Jon laughs, watching Eliza's wide, blue eyes follow Lovett's hands as they snap and gesticulate for emphasis.

“Already corrupting the next generation,” Andy chuckles, around a chocolate filled croissant. “These are excellent. Where'd you get them?”

“I don't know, Dan picked them up yesterday. The car's the only thing that puts Eliza to sleep, so could be all the way in Venice, unfortunately, but I'll ask-” Jon glances around, frowning. “Where is Dan?”

Andy shrugs.”I think he went upstairs?”

Jon frowns and, after a quick look to make sure that Eliza's securely with Tommy and Alyssa, he jogs up the stairs two at a time. “Dan?” He calls as he pushes open the door to their bedroom. “Alyssa's recruiting Eliza for some sort of hippie commune, you might wanna get down there before-”

Jon trails off as he catches sight of Dan's bare back, his muscles rippling as pulls a worn, light blue t-shirt over his head.

“- she corrupts our little girl forever,” Jon finishes, his throat dry.

Dan chuckles, turning to look at him as he adjusts the hem of his shirt over his jeans. “Don't let Alyssa hear you say that.”

“Never,” Jon says. “I like my balls where they are, thanks.”

Dan freezes, mid-laugh, his face twisting with the kind of insecurity Jon hasn't seen in the six months since he woke up at the hospital with Dan's hand in his and Eliza in his arms.

Through the open door, Tommy's hysterical laughter filters up the stairs and Jon can make out Eliza's peeling, delighted giggles under Lovett's offended rant. He can hear the steady sound of his father’s voice on the deck through the crack in their bedroom window as he ribs Gary for barbequing the steaks too well-done, and their moms’ laughter from the kitchen.

Jon, though, is focused on Dan as he crosses to the dresser, his shoulders tense under his shirt.

“You're really scaring me,” Jon whispers, hating the slippery edge to his voice that hasn't been there in six month. “And you're already wearing socks.”

“You,” Dan turns, motioning Jon over to him, “are the least patient man I've ever known and-” He takes Jon's hand when he gets close enough. He runs his thumb over Jon's knuckles, takes a deep breath, and slides to one knee. “- and I am so in love with you.”

Downstairs, Leo barks.

Jon can’t breath. “Dan.”

“I know, I know,” Dan glances down at the box in his free hand. “It’s a little soon. I didn’t actually mean to do this today, but Alyssa helped me pick out the ring a few days ago and,” he shrugs with a self-deprecating chuckle, “I guess it’s been burning a hole in my pocket.”

Jon’s heart beats wildly and his hands are sweating. “Dan,” he says, again.

“Sorry, I haven’t actually-” He shifts, holding Jon’s hand tighter, and looking up at him, his eyes the softest shade of blue. “Jon, I don’t remember the moment I fell in love with you, because I don’t remember a time before I loved you. You have the biggest heart and the most passion of anyone I’ve ever met, and just being near you makes me a million times a better man than I am-”

Jon squeezes Dan’s hand as he stumbles.

“Than I am without you.” Dan smiles softly. “You’ve already given me the best gift, more than I ever thought I could want or deserve. If you would- this last piece-”

Dan swallows and Jon slides onto his knees in front of him. “Ask me,” he whispers, his voice as choked as Dan’s.

Dan laughs, shaking his head as he drops Jon’s hand to open the box. “I know when I asked you this six months ago I did it all wrong, but I didn’t mean it any less then than I do now. Jon, please, will you marry me?”

Jon nods his head, his fingers brushing across Dan’s shaking knee. “Yes, yes, fuck, yes, of course I will.”

Dan grins, sliding both rings out of the box and sliding Jon’s on before handing his to Jon. Jon weighs the ring in his hand, feels how smooth and comfortable it feels as he takes Dan’s ring finger and slides it on.

“I really didn’t mean to do this today,” Dan laughs, wetly. “I just came up to change my shirt.”

“Well,” Jon laughs with him, squeezing Dan’s hand, “when have we ever done things any way but ass backwards?”

Dan laughs, helplessly, and pulls Jon into a kiss. “I love you.”

Jon grins when he pulls back. “Me too, fuck, me too.”

“Asshole,” Tommy calls up the stairs. “Birthday parties for six month olds don’t actually run themselves.”

Jon laughs, wiping desperately at his eyes. “Our daughter calls.”

“Yeah,” Dan smiles, kissing Jon one last time, before he pulls Jon to his feet. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays, Maddie! Thank you for pushing me to finish this as the last knell of 2018 tolls.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos much appreciated! Come find me on [tumblr](http://stainyourhands.tumblr.com/).


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